


where the weeds take root

by deathbanjo



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Curtain Fic, Didn't Know They Were Dating, Domestic, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, M/M, Post-Canon, Slow Burn, canonverse, move into the country gonna eat a lot of peaches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-10-23 15:39:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 30,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10722261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathbanjo/pseuds/deathbanjo
Summary: “Are you happy? Y’know. Just—being here,” Dean says, gesturing to the yard with his beer bottle. “Being with—I mean, you used to fight in celestial wars and—and save the world. Now you’re growing vegetables and talking about chickens.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title from [“Lotus Flower” by Radiohead](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfOa1a8hYP8). This is a fairly self-indulgent post-canon slice-of-life/curtain!fic that I’ve been struggling to write for years. Written before 12.16 so I'm sure things have been Jossed by now. The stunning artwork included within is [drawn by Em](http://hellosaidthemoonisafangirl.tumblr.com), so please go give her lots of love! 
> 
> This fic is now complete. **For more notes and detailed warnings, please see the endnotes.**

_There’s an empty space inside my heart,_  
_where the weeds take root,_  
_so now I set you free._  
_I set you free._  
— “Lotus Flower”, Radiohead

///

An adjustment period. That’s what Sam called it as he dropped a box onto the floor of his new apartment and dusted off his hands. Sun streamed in through the glass door that lead to the balcony, left a patch on the hardwood floor so bright it was blinding.

“It’ll take time,” Sam said. “It’s gonna be weird for all of us. Just let it be weird.”

///

Cas finds him in Baby’s front seat, windows down and music playing through her speakers, empty beer bottles on the floor.

He bends down and pokes a hand through the window, palm-up, and says, “Keys.”

Dean grunts into his bottle. “I got the music on.”

Cas pulls his hand back. Dean swallows another mouthful of beer. Some cheap, piss-flavored kind from the closest gas station. Whatever, it does the trick.

The passenger door creaks open and the car rocks as Cas slides in. He grabs a beer from the cooler and cracks it open, takes a long pull, then wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

One song fades into the next, then another. The tape ends after that, dropping the car into silence. Frogs chirp from the ditch.

Cas sits with his leg against the door, his beer against his thigh. There’s a hole in the knee of his jeans. He wears his sleeves rolled-up, faded converse, and a five o’clock shadow.

“Hey,” Dean says. He taps his fingers against his bottle and says, “Are you adjusting?”

Cas studies him for a moment, scratches at his beer label with his thumb. Then he looks away, out the front window, towards the edge of their property line where the sun sets beyond the wheat fields.

“More or less,” he says. “Are you?”

Dean breathes in the fresh air, the smell of grass and farmer’s fields. Feels Cas’s eyes on him. He reaches forward and turns the radio on, turns the volume up.

“Let’s get some more tunes in here,” he says.

///

Rose sized him up the second he pulled onto her property, nearly five months ago now. A short, stout woman with short grey hair and a perpetual frown. He had her Craigslist ad folded in his back pocket and she had a shotgun within arm’s reach. He didn’t have a resume, no references for her to call. But he let her look him over, his shirt tucked and jeans ironed, hands fidgeting. He let her look under Baby’s hood.

“Gotta Civic coming in at three,” she said.

///

Weekdays find him stretched out on his back with his hands up the skirt of some car or another, or elbow-deep under the hood, his toolbox in chaos by his feet.

The garage smells like gasoline and metal, like concrete floors, like sweat on hot days. Dean keeps a radio on at the workbench, sings along to Phil Collins and Bob Seger as he puts cars back together again. Some days the rain patters against the tin roof and the damp air sinks under his skin, into his bones, makes his bad knee ache.

Before he leaves for the evening, Rose corners him in the driveway with a scowl and a Tupperware bowl full of pasta salad.

“Helmet?” she asks.

“Y’know it’s only ten minutes up the road, right?” Dean says around an unlit cigarette.

Rose glares at him. “Don’t backtalk me, boy.”

Dean smiles at her and flicks his lighter, leans in to catch the flame, Dorothy’s old Indian squeaking under him. Rose huffs and shakes her head, then moves towards his bike, pulls open the saddlebag and shoves the bowl into it.

“Tell Sharon I said thanks,” Dean says. He starts the engine, the bike rumbling into life underneath him, and gives Rose a wave before he takes off down the driveway and onto the main road.

///

Dean used to have an old, ratty shoebox under his bed. Here’s what was inside it:

  * An old leather wallet with the initials “J.W” embossed on the front.
  * Two tattered notebooks with ripped covers and loose pages full of scribbles about monsters, lyrics from songs, messy doodles, and phone numbers from truck stop diner waitresses.
  * A handful of photographs featuring a few familiar faces that are still painful to look at.
  * A dog-eared _Slaughterhouse Five_ , a coverless _Grapes of Wrath_ , and a relatively intact _Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_.
  * Some stray bullets.
  * Some jewellery.
  * Five mix tapes with handwritten titles in faded pen such as “Tunes for Ass-Kicking” and “Songs to Get Laid To.”



It was the last box he carried out of the bunker seven months ago, tucked under his arm. The dust from the lid smeared on his coat sleeve. Arthur Ketch eyed it, nose turned up and mouth drawn tight.

“Should you find the need to return, please do call first,” he said. Then, with a stiff smile, he slammed the door in Dean’s face.

///

“It sounds like a Rugaru.”

Dean shoves the bowl of pasta salad into the fridge and pulls out a beer. He tosses the cap into the recycle bin and leans against the counter. Cas watches him, bored, one of the landlines pressed to his ear, chin in his hand.

“Do you know if she’s eaten yet?” he asks. There’s a muffled reply from the other end of the line. Dean smiles at him from around the rim of his bottle and Cas sighs. “Then you’re going to have to use fire. If you don’t have a flamethrower you can make one.”

Whoever is on the other end seems satisfied with that, and Cas hangs the phone back up in its cradle.

“Sharon made pasta salad,” Dean says.

Cas grunts in acknowledgement and rubs at his temples.

“Oh, and I almost forgot.” Dean sets his beer on the counter and digs into his pocket. He pulls out his wallet and a packet falls to the floor. Cas eyes it as he picks it up and hands it over. “Cucumber, right?”

“Right, yes,” Cas says, getting out of his chair. He takes the packet of seeds from him and says, “Thank you.”

Dean shrugs, and Cas tucks the seeds into the front pocket of his hoodie. Bare feet quiet on the kitchen floor, he steps into Dean’s space, grabs his beer off the counter. He takes a long drink, licks his lips after.

“You stink,” he says.

Dean grabs the bottle out of Cas’s hand. “ _You_ stink.”

Cas smiles at him, warm and bright, fond in a way that makes Dean’s stomach flutter. He takes another swallow of beer then shoves the bottle back at Cas before pushing away from the counter.

“Fine,” he says. “I’ll go shower, since apparently no one appreciates the musk of a hard-working man around here.”

Cas lets out a soft laugh just as one of the of the phones rings. Dean hurries out of the kitchen before Cas has a chance to talk him into answering it.

///

Dean lifted one side of Sam’s new big-screen television onto the wall mount and said, “Dude, the house is too big for one person.”

Sam frowned at him from the other side of the TV. “There’s two of you.”

“Yeah,” Dean said, grabbing the wires at the back of the screen. “For now.”

Carefully, he pulled the wires apart, straightened out the bends and creases, and ignored the expression on Sam’s face. Ignored the furrow in his brow, the lines by his mouth. Ignored the way they smoothed away when he finally clued in.

“Dean—”

He cleared his throat and avoided Sam’s eye, pointed to the plastic bag in the middle of the floor.

“Here,” he said. “Hand me the cables.”

///

The pipes groan when Dean turns on the shower. He washes the day off his skin, all the dust and the oil on his hands, under his fingernails, the sweat from under his arms and the back of his neck.

He pulls on track pants and a faded Blue Öyster Cult t-shirt, heads back downstairs. There’s a warm breeze blowing in through the screen door, a bowl of pasta salad and a sandwich on the kitchen counter waiting for him. His stomach grumbles. Dean grabs another beer out of the fridge and takes his food out onto the back porch.

“It’s turkey,” Cas says by way of greeting, feet propped up on the railing, legs crossed at the ankle. His plate lies abandoned on the side table nestled between the chairs.

“Awesome,” Dean says as he sits down, winces when his knee pops. Cas glances at him and Dean says, “I’m starving.”

“Mm,” Cas says. “You can consider this a show of appreciation. Y’know, for all your hard work.”

Dean snorts. “Ass.”

Cas might not be able to cook for shit, but he puts together a damn fine sandwich, even if all the ingredients are from the supermarket. Except the tomatoes. Those Cas pulled off the plant nestled in the corner of the porch. Seeds gush out when Dean takes a bite, the juice dripping down his wrist and onto his plate. He sucks mayonnaise off his fingers.

“Who was that on the phone?” he asks around a mouthful of bread.

“Josephine,” Cas says.

Dean swallows his food. “They’re hunting a Rugaru?”

Cas nods. “In Louisiana.”

“Huh,” Dean says. He dabs at some excess mustard in the corner of his plate. “You hear from Sam at all?”

Cas shakes his head, pokes around his bowl with his fork. “No.”

Dean polishes off his sandwich and tucks into his salad, watches as a light fog gathers along the edge of their property, hovers over the neighbor’s wheat field. There’s no traffic out here, no transport trucks blaring their horns on the freeway. Just birds and crickets and a farm dog barking in the distance.

Beside him, Cas sets his bowl on their growing pile of dishes and pulls out a baggie from his sweater pocket, digs around for a pack of papers. 

Dean huffs out a laugh, watches Cas’s fingers work as he rolls a joint.

“That dessert?” he asks.

“No.” Cas licks the edge of the paper, smooths it down. He pops the joint into his mouth and digs his lighter out of his pocket, flicks it on and inhales. “There’s pie in the oven.”

Dean sets his fork down. “Seriously?”

“It’s from the bakery.” Cas shrugs and hands him the joint. “Surprise.”

Dean takes a toke and holds it, hands the joint back, Cas’s fingertips brushing his. Dean exhales, sweet-smelling smoke getting carried away on the breeze. Then he gathers up their dishes, their empty beer bottles, and heaves himself out of his chair.

“Don’t fall asleep out here,” he says.

Cas smiles and says, “I won’t.”

///

Dean has a night-time routine. It goes like this:

  1. He locks the front door, the door to the garage, and the back door. While there, he lifts up the rugs to make sure the demon traps are still there, carved into the floorboards (they are).
  2. He checks behind picture frames to make sure the warding sigils they painted the day they moved in haven’t faded away (they haven’t).
  3. Next, depending on the day, on the hour, on his mood: 
    1. He’ll pop a painkiller for his knee. On nights when the throb is merely a dull ache, or not there at all, he moves straight to point b.
    2. He brushes his teeth.
  4. As he passes the door at the end of the hall, he turns his head to look into the bedroom, just to make sure the books piled on the bedside table, the half-full glass of water, the potted cacti in the windowsill weren’t a hallucination (they weren’t). 
    1. Most nights, Cas goes to bed later than him, usually stays out on the porch until the mosquitos get bad.
    2. Sometimes, though, Dean will pass by his bedroom and Cas will say, “Goodnight, Dean.”
  5. He checks under the bed to make sure the bottle of holy water and his shotgun is still there (they are).



Old habits can’t be salted and burned. They can’t be exorcised away. They die hard.

///

(And still Dean wakes up some nights, breathless and shaking. For a minute he can still taste ash and smoke, feel blood on his hands, hear the sounds of distant screams. His stomach still rolls even once they’ve faded away.

Sometimes, there’s a phantom burn, a tingle in his right arm. He runs his fingers over the skin, feels for the raised scar tissue of a mark that’s long gone.)

///

Cas is quiet in the morning.

He’s usually full-up with piss and vinegar, usually unbearably cranky until he gets enough caffeine in his system. But this morning he’s an unsettled kind of quiet, the kind that follows a night of not enough sleep, of staring up at the ceiling and listening to crickets until the small hours.

Cas hands him the keys to the truck without a word, brings a thermos of coffee with him on the drive into town. Dean finds a radio station that doesn’t make Cas glare, some NPR talk show about climate change, and stays quiet. He needs wire and nails, a new saw blade, some wood. Maybe some sandpaper. Cas mentioned needing another bag of cat food for the stray he’s been feeding by the woodshed.

Dean pulls into a parking spot on the main street and feeds the meter. Behind him, Cas drinks from his thermos and watches the cars at the stoplight.

“You wanna come with me or split up?” Dean asks.

Cas shrugs, takes another drink. Dean gives him a moment to decide if he wants to answer. Apparently he doesn’t. With a sigh, Dean pockets the keys and starts walking towards the hardware store. Cas falls into step beside him.

“We not talking today?” Dean asks.

Cas drinks from his thermos.

“Guess not,” Dean says.

///

He finds the nails first and dumps them into a basket. Gets a pack of sandpaper next. The wire comes in rolls, so he grabs whichever one looks right, and a pair of pliers. He finds the blade and some gloves. Then he heads to the counter and asks for lumber, winks at the cashier when she calls someone to help him.

Cas watches him pay for the supplies, watches Dean bag the sandpaper and pliers and roll of wire. When Dean catches him watching, he looks away.

///

Eventually, Cas gives in to his curiosity. He usually does.

“What’s the wood for?” he asks, half an hour later when they’re on their way home. He moves the bag of cat food off the seat between them and sets it on the floor by his feet.

Dean drives with one hand on the wheel, eyes on the road. He fights back a smile, feeling like he’s won, and says, “Not sure yet.”

///

It rains that evening, so they eat chili in the living room, feet up on the coffee table and _Judge Judy_ on the television. Cas hums when Dean calls one of the plaintiffs an idiot, doesn’t say anything except for a quiet “thank you for dinner” as he clears away their dishes before disappearing upstairs.

Dean heads out to the barn after, coat collar turned up against the rain, cigarette loose between his lips. He sits down at his workbench and turns on his radio, tries to find a station that’s more music than static. He grabs a pencil and paper and starts sketching boxes, goes through photos on his phone for inspiration.

An hour later Cas finds him, his hair plastered to his forehead from the rain, shirt soaked through. Dean shoves the bits of paper into a drawer and lowers the volume on the radio.

“What’s up?” he asks.

“Kelly called,” Cas says.

Dean frowns. “Everything okay?”

“Jacob’s just…” Cas searches for a word, then gives up. “I said I’d help.”

D.C. is a seventeen hour drive—longer, with the storm. Dean rubs at his eye and says, “So, uh. Is this a job, or—I mean, d’you want company?”

Cas’s mouth twitches in the corner. “No, I think he just needs someone to talk to. I shouldn’t be gone long.”

“Right,” Dean nods, ignores the way his stomach sinks. “So that’s me on phone duty.”

Cas pulls his keys out of his pocket and says, “I’ll call your cell if there’s a problem.”

///

It’s gone past midnight when Dean finishes getting ready for bed. He taps his toothbrush against the sink and drops it back into the cup under the mirror, wipes his mouth, and flicks the bathroom light off when he leaves.

Same as every night, he looks into Cas’s bedroom as he walks past the door. But tonight he slows, stops in front of it.

Cas left the window open a crack, the sound of rain tapping on the roof, the white curtains blowing in with the breeze. Cas keeps his closet doors open, keeps a wicker basket shoved into the corner, dirty clothes piled wherever they landed.

Dean spots a coffee mug on the desk and sighs. “Dammit, Cas.”

He steps into the room, the floor creaking under his feet, and makes his way over to the desk. There’s a few blank pieces of paper scattered on the surface, a collection of mint tins in the corner, full of loose change and paperclips, buttons and rocks Cas found on the side of the road. Cas left his journal open on a page about demon hierarchies.

Dean closes the window, just in case the storm picks up, and grabs the mug. At the bottom, in the last, cold dregs of coffee, a ladybug swims in circles.

///

They got pizza delivered, Sam reading his address off a slip of paper, not yet memorized. His apartment is one of four in the building, situated above a stationery shop and overlooking a laundromat. The smell of fresh laundry seeped in through open windows, the sound of small-town traffic in the air.

They ate without plates and shared a case of beer between them, watched the game.

In between one piece of pizza and the next, eyes glued to the TV, Sam said, “You know he’s not going anywhere, right?”


	2. Chapter 2

When Dean gets up for work on Wednesday morning, he finds Cas’s door closed. He showers and puts on his work clothes, makes his way down to the kitchen for coffee and toast.

Propped up against the coffeemaker sits a vintage-style postcard from a gas station in Ohio. Not the first Cas has brought home, probably not the last. Dean flips it over. On the back, in Cas’s messy chicken scratch, it reads:

> _I saw a truck at the gas station that had a group of teenagers playing instruments in the back. A man walking by shouted, “Play Freebird!”_

  
Dean laughs and puts the card back, sets it carefully against the coffeemaker. His toast pops and he butters it, spreads on homemade strawberry jam that they bought from the farmer’s market last weekend, and leans against the counter as he eats, reads the news on his phone. He finds a story about weird weather and cattle mutilations and bookmarks the link.

Before he leaves for work, keys in hand, he scribbles a note on the whiteboard stuck to the fridge: _Call twins - demons in Dillon, MT._

///

Rose is in the yard when Dean pulls up on his bike, her arms crossed and expression tight as a man in a cowboy hat gestures to his truck—a Ford, the kind that takes up an entire country back road. Its paintjob is still shiny, the new car smell not yet faded despite the coating of dust creeping up from the undercarriage. The plates are pristine, bright white. Dean eyes them as he walks over, feels the man’s eyes on him, watching his movements, sizing him up.

Dean pulls his smokes out of his pocket, his lighter. To Rose, he asks, “There a problem?”

The man turns to face him, pushes his shoulders back so he’s his full, unimpressive height, at least a head shorter than Dean. He says, “Got a rattle in the front.”

“And you ain’t got an appointment,” Rose says.

The man ignores her, attention on Dean as he says, “Can you look at it real quick?”

Dean exhales smoke out of the side of his mouth. “You need an appointment.”

“It’s an emergency,” the man says.

“Call the dealership,” Rose says.

“He didn’t get it at the dealership,” Dean says. Both Rose and the man look at him. Dean asks, “You got the registration?”

“What you need the registration for?” the man asks. “It’s just a damn rattle.”

“Like hell,” Rose says. “You got one minute to get off my damn property.”

The man turns to her and sneers. “Why don’t you run along back inside and let the boys talk shop?”

“We’re not talking,” Dean says. “She says leave, you leave.”

The man glares, spits in the dirt, snarls out, “Bitch.”

Dean rounds on him but Rose is quicker. She whips her shotgun out from where it was hiding against the porch stairs and points it at the man’s knees. The man freezes as she cocks it, a shell flying out.

“Thirty seconds,” she says.

The man hurries into his truck, barely gets the door closed before he’s reversing down the driveway, gravel grinding underneath the tires and kicking up a cloud of dust. He spins the truck around and speeds off down the road and out of sight.

“You get the plate?” Dean asks.

Rose sets her gun down and says, “‘Course.”

///

Rose is a woman of few words. When she does talk she’s gruff and short, whether it’s to Dean or to customers, it doesn’t matter. He’s only seen her full belly-laugh once, in response to something Sharon said as Rose handed her a mug of tea, their hands brushing together over the handle.

When Rose talks it’s about work, or the weather, or, sometimes, about how Dean’s not eating enough. She doesn’t talk about Sharon, about how they met, or about how she introduced Sharon as her friend, and how Dean knows that’s bullshit.

Some days they work alongside each other in comfortable silence. Most days, though, he works by himself while Rose putters around outside with the smaller engines, lawn mowers and motorcycles and whatever else.

Today he’s by himself. He keeps the garage door open to let in fresh air and sings along to “Sweet Home Alabama”, his hands in the guts of a Firebird. He stands up, grabs a rag to wipe oil off his hands, turns to his toolbox to grab a socket wrench, and jumps at the sight of someone standing next to him.

“Jesus fuck,” he breathes, clutching his chest. “You tryin’a give me a goddamn heart attack?”

“Sorry,” Cas says.

Dean exhales, then laughs. “We seriously need to get you a bell or something.”

“So you’ve said,” Cas says. He holds out a paper bag, the top a little crinkled from being handled, and says, “I thought you might want this.”

“Shit.” Dean takes the bag and sits on the lip of the Firebird. “I knew I forgot something. Thanks.”

Cas nods and leans against the workbench, tucks his hands in his pockets as Dean grabs his sandwich out of the bag and unwraps it, takes a bite out of the corner. It’s not as good as the ones Cas makes, but his stomach’s been rumbling for half an hour and he’s not picky.

“You got in late,” Dean says around a mouthful of turkey.

“Technically, it was early,” Cas says. Then, “Jacob’s starting to hear angels. He was understandably upset. Kelly wanted to try medication, but…”

“But there’s no pill for angel radio,” Dean says. He pulls a piece of turkey from his sandwich and pops it into his mouth.

Cas nods again, inhales, slow. When he exhales his shoulders droop, defeated.

“I’m not sure if I was able to help much,” he says.

“You do help, Cas,” Dean says. He swallows his mouthful of food and gestures with his sandwich. “Maybe you’re not, y’know. Stopping apocalypses and, uh, healing babies, or whatever. But you drove across the country to talk to a lost kid.”

Cas’s mouth lifts up in the corner, a small smile that makes something under Dean’s skin heat, warm up from the inside out. “You think?”

“I know,” Dean says.

The tension drains out of Cas’s shoulders and Dean smiles at him before he goes back to his sandwich. David Bowie comes on the radio, “Starman.” Cas closes his eyes and listens for a minute, still, relaxed, until he lets out a sigh and opens his eyes, pulls away from the workbench.

“I have an appointment at twelve-thirty,” he says.

Dean checks his watch—it’s already nearing twelve. He rolls up his sandwich wrapper and shoves it back into his bag. “Job?”

“This one’s a bungalow, at least,” Cas says.

Dean sniffs. “Sure, if you’re into that.”

“I’m not having this argument with you again,” Cas says. He reaches out and touches Dean’s arm gently and says, “See you later.”

“Yeah.” Dean digs through his lunch bag and tries to ignore the way the his skin heats. “See ya.”

///

At four, Sharon wanders into the garage, long grey hair tied in a messy bun, a few loose strands sticking to her face with static. She hands him a beer and says, “That man of yours give you your lunch?”

Dean takes it gratefully and twists the cap off, takes a long drink, the glass cold against his palm. There’s a haze on the horizon, the threat of another storm in the air, sweat pooling in the middle of his back and under his arms. He wipes his mouth with his hand, then pauses.

“Wait,” he says. “My what?”

Sharon drinks from her own bottle as she rounds the Firebird, touches the hood as she goes. “She running okay?”

“Cas isn’t—” Dean huffs and takes another pull from his bottle before he says, “Yeah, she sounds great.”

Sharon smiles at him from the other side of the car. “Mr. Jameson will be glad to hear it.”

“Yeah,” Dean says. “What did you mean, ‘that man of yours’?”

“Handsome devil, ain’t he?” Sharon says.

Dean opens his mouth, closes it again. “We’re not—it’s not like that.”

Sharon looks at him for a long moment, studies him. Dean’s face feels warm, the tips of his ears burning.

Then Sharon shrugs, brings her bottle to her lips and says, “My mistake.”

///

“You say something to Sharon?”

Cas pauses in the doorway, hardhat hanging loose in his hand, hair pressed down from wearing it all afternoon. There’s dirt on the cuffs of his jeans, sawdust down the front of his shirt.

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” he says. “Why?”

“She just—” Dean shakes his head, turns back to the pot on the stove. “Whatever, it’s nothing. Tell me about work.”

Cas sets his lunch container on the counter, his empty water bottle, his hardhat. He runs his fingers through his hair and sighs. “We have a smaller crew this year. And it was hot. I think another storm is coming.”

“Yeah, I noticed.” Dean shifts his weight off his bad knee. He grabs the salt and grinds some into the pasta sauce, stirs it again with his spoon. “You hear from Sam at all?”

“No,” Cas says. “You?”

“Nah.” Dean says. He turns the heat down on the burner and says, “Wash up, this’ll be ready in ten.”

Cas wanders out of the kitchen. Dean dumps the leftover ice from Cas’s bottle into the sink, fills it with hot water and dish soap. He goes through Cas’s lunch container, takes out the Tupperware and cutlery, sets it aside, then shoves the bag back into the cupboard. The pasta sauce bubbles in the pot and the pipes groan overhead as Cas gets the shower going.

Dean pulls the pasta off the stove and drains it in the sink, sets it aside to go back to the sauce. He takes his phone out of his pocket, flips through his contact list until he comes to Sam’s name. He nibbles on his lip as his thumb hovers over it.

“That smells good,” Cas says from behind him.

Dean turns his phone off and slips it back into his pocket.

///

For two months the three of them piled into cramped motel rooms or camped out in empty parking lots or on the side of dusty back roads, Dean in the front, Sam in the back, and Cas in his truck a few feet away.

One morning over a truck stop breakfast that was more grease than flavor, Sam found an ad for a farmhouse in another county. Two stories covered in white siding, with an attic, four bedrooms, one and a half bathrooms, a basement, and plunked down in the middle of twenty-five acres of flat, grassy fields and a smattering of trees.

Dean ripped a piece of toast in half and dunked it in his egg yolk. Mouth full, he asked, “What are we gonna do with a farmhouse?”

///

It takes Dean a week of slipping out the back door and hiding in the barn before he finishes his project. He sanded them down in the end, just to avoid splinters, treated it so they were waterproof but didn’t bother with a stain.

He finds Cas in the woodshed, sitting on the floor with a joint in his mouth and an orange cat curled up in his lap. The cat looks up at him when he enters but doesn’t move.

“Don’t think you’re supposed to get cats high, Cas,” Dean says.

“She’s not high,” Cas says. He pets her behind the ears and she closes her eyes, tilts her chin up for Cas to scratch under it. Cas exhales smoke and stubs the joint out on the floor. “Do you need something?”

“Yeah. Come with me,” Dean says.

Cas frowns at him, suspicious, but he moves the cat off his lap anyway, uses the wall of the shed to help push himself off the floor. He dusts off the back of his jeans and follows Dean out into the sun. Dean’s heart pounds, his stomach tense.

When they reach the barn doors Dean stops, turns to look at him. “It’s not much.”

Cas’s frown deepens, head tilted slightly, and Dean opens the doors.

It’s warm inside, stuffy despite the industrial fan overhead and the concrete floors. He left them on the floor by his workbench, side by side on a palette to keep the dirt off. Cas moves over to them, reaches for one then stops, looks at Dean.

“Is this—did you make these?” he asks.

“Yeah.” Dean tucks his hands into his pockets, gives a shrug. “They’re Douglas fir. I, uh. I read an article that said it was one of the better woods for planter boxes. I thought, just, y’know. I don’t know anything about gardening but I saw them online.”

Cas runs his hand along the side of the closest box. “They’re beautiful.”

“Yeah?” Dean says. “You like ‘em?”

“Of course,” Cas says. He leans in closer, rubs his thumb along a seam. “Dean, these are—there’s no cracks. The ones at the store had cracks.”

“That’s cuz the ones at the store are shit,” Dean says.

Cas looks up at him, mouth twitching. “I’ve always admired your modesty.”

“Shut up,” Dean says. “Seriously, though. They’re okay? They’ll work?”

“Absolutely,” Cas says, standing up. “Thank you, Dean. They’re perfect.”

Dean shifts awkwardly, embarrassed. He gestures to the planter boxes and says, “All right, well. Gimme a hand, we’ll put ‘em outside.”

///

It started with the tomatoes. It was more an accident than anything.

Sam insisted on using the compost, now that they had one around back near the woodshed. Dean grumbled about it but followed along, dumped whatever excess vegetables he used in his cooking into the bucket they set aside in the garage.

Then one evening Cas came in from smoking with tomatoes in his pockets. He dumped them on the table where Dean and Sam were trying to work out a system for the phones. One rolled off the edge and landed on the floor.

“What are those?” Dean asked.

“Tomatoes,” Cas said. “They’re a fruit. They’re used to make ketchup.”

He drove into town the next morning and bought a pot and some soil, a spade and some gloves. He dug the tomato plant out of the compost and re-planted it in the pot. When Dean came home from work it was on the porch, waiting for him.

Next were carrots. Cas planted them in a patch of dirt near one of the trees in the backyard. He dug up rocks from the small creek that cut their property in half and stuck them in the corners so no one—mostly Dean—would accidentally step on them. Then came zucchini, and chives, and a few herbs to replenish their supplies. By the time Sam announced he was moving out, Cas had a small garden growing.

Just as Dean helped Sam shove the last of his boxes into his car, Cas appeared with a small pot under his arm, one of the young tomato plants poking out from the soil.

“For your balcony,” he said.

Sam pulled him into a hug, said something that only Cas could hear. Dean watched as Sam carefully set the pot in the back seat of his car, between his duffle and a box of linens. Together, he and Cas watched as Sam drove away.

“What he say?” Dean asked.

Cas just smiled.


	3. Chapter 3

Friday’s last client of the day is a perfectionist who insists he goes over every inch of his van. He looks for scratches or dings or whatever the hell else he thinks Dean might’ve done to it before he’s satisfied that nothing is out of place and pays Rose the fee.

The sky rumbles just as Dean leaves, apparently finally making good on its threat to rain again, a cool wind blowing down from the north that makes his knee ache worse than usual.

“Good thing you took the car,” Rose says, handing him his paycheck.

Baby’s front seat is still warm from sitting in the heat all day. It’s not much, but it’s enough to dull the throb in his knee, if only a little. Even after a few years of having a more permanent residence, she still manages to bring him small comforts.

///

Cas is hovering at the stove when he gets home, stirring something in a pot. He looks up when Dean enters and says, “Hi.”

Dean pauses in the doorway to frown at him. “You’re cooking.”

“It’s canned soup,” Cas says. “Nothing exciting.”

Dean pulls his keys out of his pocket and hangs them on their hook. He feels Cas’s eyes on him as he bends down to put the beer in the fridge, tries not to wince as his knee throbs again. He grabs a beer and closes the fridge door, finds Cas still watching him, frowning at his knee.

“I’m fine,” Dean says.

Cas turns back to the stove. “I didn’t say anything.”

Carefully, Dean plunks down in the nearest chair. He stretches his leg out as much as he can, shifts until he’s comfortable. Cas turns the stove off and moves the pot off the burner, grabs plates and bowls and crackers from the cupboard, his sweater sleeves slipping down his wrists.

He slides Dean his food before he sits down opposite him. He rips into the pack of crackers, crunches them up in his hand and dumps them into his soup, stirs them in. Dean puts his beer on the table and turns to his dinner. There’s not much to the soup, just rice and vegetables, but it’s hot. Dean’s stomach grumbles.

“What’d you do today?” he asks.

“Organized a bit, answered the phones.” Cas shrugs. Then he smiles, a bit crooked, and says, “Krissy thought she found a chupacabra but it was just a really ugly dog.”

Dean laughs. He breaks a cracker in two and dips one end of it into his soup, pops it into his mouth.

“Oh—next week, if you want, Sam invited us for dinner,” Cas says.

“You talked to Sam?” Dean asks. “When, today?”

Cas opens and closes his mouth, looks down at his food. “Um. No, it was the other day.”

“Oh.”

Cas looks up at him again. “I’m sorry. I just—I completely forgot.”

“Yeah.” Dean dunks the other half of his cracker into his bowl.

“Dean—”

Dean picks up his beer bottle again. “It’s fine, Cas.”

“Is it?”

Dean looks at him. Cas looks back.

“He asked why you haven’t called him,” he says.

Dean looks away and drains the rest of his beer, gets up to grab another one, a jolt of pain shooting through his knee.

“I think he thinks you’re angry with him,” Cas says. When Dean doesn’t reply, just sits down at the table again and drinks his beer, Cas asks, “Are you angry with him?

Dean grabs the rest of his crackers, breaks them up, drops them into his soup. He pushes them down to the bottom with his spoon.

Cas says, “Dean.”

“What’s it matter anyway, huh?” Dean drops his spoon into his bowl, gestures to the table at large. “Not like he’s here, right? Or—y’know. Calling me on my phone. He doesn’t have to deal with it, so who cares.”

Cas watches him. Dean huffs and looks away, grabs his spoon again and shovels soup into his mouth, the crackers gone soggy.

///

Dean goes about his usual routine. He checks the locks, the rugs, the picture frames. He pops painkillers for his knee. He brushes his teeth and flicks off the bathroom light.

When he passes the room at the end of the hall, turns his head to look in, he finds a closed door instead.

///

The morning brings a haze on the horizon, the promise of a hot day ahead. Dean’s head feels heavy, his movements slow. He takes the Indian despite the ache in his knee, despite the air growing heavy with humidity. The sun warms his back as he drives, heats its way under his clothes, into his skin, and the breeze wakes him up a little.

It’s not until he’s deep under a Jetta that his stomach rumbles and he realizes he forgot his lunch again. He swears under his breath and pulls himself out from under the car. Cas has probably already left for work. Even if he hasn’t, that doesn’t mean he’ll answer his phone when he sees Dean’s name pop up.

Dean makes his way up to the house. There’s a bark from inside and Wilfred trots up to the door to greet him, nose pressed to the screen. Sharon appears a few seconds later to grab him by the collar and pull him back.

“Boy, you look beat,” she says, opening the screen door.

“Yeah,” he says. “Didn’t get much sleep.”

She eyes him for a minute. Then asks, “What can I do for ya?”

“Mind if I pop out quick? I left my lunch at home.”

“Again?” she asks. When he shrugs, she asks, “What about Cas?”

“Nah,” Dean says. “He’s, uh—he’s working today.”

“Gotta take advantage of the good weather when they can.” Sharon nods in understanding. “All right. I’ll let Rose know. But be quick now, owner’s due back this aft’ for that Jetta.”

///

“Dean?” Sam says when he picks up. “Everything okay?”

There’s a gas station on the edge of town that has a food truck parked around back, a few picnic tables with umbrellas scattered around, and a nice view of an empty field with a heavily graffitied billboard in the middle of it. It’s blissfully deserted this time of day, except for the old man in the food truck watching _M.A.S.H._ on a small television and a customer at the gas pump. It’s here that Dean sits, phone pressed to his ear.

“Yeah,” he says. “Everything’s fine.”

“Cas tell you mom called me yesterday?” Sam asks. “I sent the twins on a shifter case and she met up with them. They ran into Bucky—guess he’s found another group of hunters to work with.”

Dean frowns. “When’d you talk to Cas?”

“Uh—last night,” Sam says. “He called me. Why?”

Dean huffs. “Guess he forgot to mention that. Again.”

“Dean—”

“So, what? You lose my number, or something?” Dean asks. He rolls up his hotdog wrapper and tosses it at a nearby trashcan. It bounces off the rim and lands in the dirt.

Sam sighs. “No, I didn’t. I just thought—Cas said—”

“Right. Cas,” Dean says. “Well, I’d love to know what Cas said, since he’s failed to mention—several times, apparently—that you guys are keeping tabs on me.”

“Jesus, Dean. It’s not like that,” Sam says.

“Well, enlighten me, man.”

“This—right here?” Sam says. “This is why I don’t call you. This is why I call Cas.”

“Yeah, and I’ll deal with Cas later—”

“There’s nothing to deal with, Dean!” Sam snaps. “You have my number, you could’ve called me. But you didn’t. Cas did. So yeah, I’ve been talking with him. He probably didn’t tell you because he knew you’d get like this.”

“Get like what?” Dean asks. “I don’t get like anything.”

“Yes, you do,” Sam says. “You pull the silent treatment when people do something you don't like and you push people away when they—y’know what? Whatever.”

“When they what?”

“Never mind.”

“Sam.”

Sam sighs. “When they try to get close to you.”

Dean opens his mouth, closes it again. A car pulls into the parking lot and a family of four get out to make their way over to the food truck. Dean swallows and grabs his soda.

“I have to go,” he says.

“Dean, wait—”

“I’m gonna be late getting back to work,” Dean says. He hangs up the call and tosses his soda can into the garbage. The family reaches the counter as he turns to leave, head ducked and hand digging for his pack of cigarettes. The mother gives him a smile as he passes.

///

Cas’s truck is still gone when Dean gets home. He parks the Indian in the garage and heads inside, kicks his boots off at the door, hangs up his coat. He pulls at his t-shirt, sticky with sweat, grabs a beer out of the fridge and pauses in front of the whiteboard.

They have a magnetic basket hanging off the side of the fridge full of markers and pens and post-it notes, a roll of tape. The whole thing was Sam’s idea, since he always liked the one in the bunker kitchen.

Dean swallows a mouthful of beer and picks through the basket, grabs a pen and the roll of tape. He sets his beer down and reaches into his back pocket, pulls out his wallet and opens it, finds the two packets of seeds he bought on the way home—bell peppers, this time.

Carefully, he tapes both packets to the middle of the whiteboard. Then he uncaps the marker and in big, messy scrawl, writes underneath them:

> _For your garden.  
>  — D_

///

At nine there’s a knock on his bedroom door. Dean tosses _The Restaurant at the End of the Universe_ aside and says, “Yeah?”

The door opens with a squeak and Cas lets his hand slip off the doorknob. He stands in the hallway, dressed in plaid pyjama bottoms and a second-hand “Drop Beats Not Bombs” t-shirt and looks in, holding a mug, a small cactus growing in it. He waits until Dean sits up and waves him inside.

“Hi,” Cas says, quiet.

Dean nods. “Hey.”

“Um,” Cas says. He looks at Dean, then away, to the cactus in his hand. Dean doesn’t know anything about cacti, but it’s one of the fat little round ones with a flower on top, petals a little wilted. “This—my room doesn’t get as much sunlight.”

Dean nods to the windowsill, watches as Cas shuffles across his room to put the cactus in the corner of it, angles it so it can get enough sun. Satisfied, Cas drops his hands to his sides, nibbles on his bottom lip before he looks up at Dean again.

“If that thing dies, it’s not my fault,” Dean says. “Right?”

Cas’s mouth twitches. “You won’t kill it.”

“If you say so,” Dean says.

Cas’s hands fidget together, long fingers brushing over his knuckles. He inhales, slow, and says, “I really did mean to tell you about Sam. I just—I forgot.”

Dean looks up from Cas’s hands, meets his eyes. Cas waits, shoulders up, tense like he’s ready for a fight.

Dean sighs and shifts, swings his legs around the edge of his bed, feet on the floor. He pats the spot next to him and Cas moves away from the window, the mattress dipping when he sits down next to him.

Quietly, Cas says, “It seems to be happening more lately.”

Dean’s stomach tightens, his breath catches. He swallows it down, steadies his breathing the way Sam taught him how, years ago, after a roadside confession about hellfire and the smell of blood on his hands.

“Where I put my keys. If I fed the cat or not,” Cas says. “Just little things.”

Dean nods. “Is this a, uh. Side-effect, or…?”

Cas looks at him. “A side-effect of getting older?”

Dean exhales. His stomach loosens, just slightly. “Right.”

Cas gives him a soft smile. “How’s your knee?”

Dean stretches his leg out a bit, winces. “It’s, y’know. Another side-effect.”

“Mm,” Cas agrees. He reaches up with his hand, rubs his thumb over Dean’s temple. “So is grey hair.”

Dean bats his hand away. “Shut up. You’re the one going grey, not me.”

“If you say so.”

Dean huffs and Cas bumps their shoulders together. Dean looks at him and Cas looks back, expression warm, content, and Dean feels his cheeks heat, the tips of his ears. He clears his throat and looks down at their knees, almost touching.

“So,” he says. “What's with the postcards?”

Cas hums again. “Some people blog.”

“Right,” Dean says. He reaches forward and rubs at his knee with his fingers, tries to get the ache out, feels Cas tracking the movement. “How many of ‘em you got?”

He looks up again. Cas meets his eye, and says, “A lot.”


	4. Chapter 4

“There’s a huge vamp nest east of Chicago,” Max says. “They’re scattered around the countryside. They kill some and turn others.”

“How big we talking?” Dean asks, just as Cas wanders into the kitchen with a bad case of bedhead, his sweater hanging crooked off his shoulder. Dean gives him a wave. Cas ignores him in favor of the coffeemaker.

“I’unno,” Max says. “Twenty? Maybe more. They have little pockets of three or four holed up in old barns and hunting shacks. The locals think it’s a rogue cougar.”

“The locals always think it’s a rogue cougar,” Dean says. He brings up a website Charlie helped set up for them that tracks all the willing hunters’ phone numbers. He taps one of the markers on the map. “Wendy’s in Lafayette. You want her number?”

Max hesitates. “Can’t you come?”

Cas fills his mug almost to the brim and drinks it black, watches Dean from where he leans against the counter.

“Uh. I—no,” Dean says. “Think I’m gonna sit this one out.”

Cas frowns at him over his mug. Dean looks away.

“Right,” Max says. “Your mom told us about the Brits. Sanctimonious pricks if you ask me.”

“Tell me about it,” Dean says, forcing a laugh. “Here, I’ll text you Wendy’s number. Give her a call. She’s hilarious, you’ll love her.”

“All right,” Max says. Then, “It’s not the same out here without you guys, man.”

Dean doesn’t reply, just sits with the phone pressed against his ear, listens to the dial tone ringing out for a minute before he realizes Max ended the call.

///

“This is bullshit,” Dean said. “They can’t do this.”

“Dean—”

“No, Sam. We’ve been hunting our whole damn lives,” Dean said. He grabbed at the whiskey bottle in the middle of the table, the one he stole from the bunker on his way out. “We got a system over here, one that works. Just because they got accents and a few fancy toys—”

“Dude, just chill,” Sam said.

Dean huffed and poured himself another glass, topped up Cas’s, drained the last dribble into Sam’s. With a sigh he set the empty bottle back onto the table.

After a long moment, Sam said, “This might not be a bad thing, you know.”

Dean looked at him, opened his mouth to argue.

“Don’t. Just—hear me out.” Sam said. “Look, I dunno about you guys, but the last time a demon threw me into a wall, I couldn’t walk properly for over a week.”

“Yeah, that’s the job,” Dean said.

“And we’re not twenty anymore, Dean,” Sam said. “Hell, I mean, you’re—”

Dean held up his hand. “Don’t remind me.”

Sam looked at Cas, hopeful, and said, “You kept saying we should grow our own herbs for spells, right? But the bunker didn’t have enough land.”

Cas eyed him, suspicious. “Right.”

“Right. So.” Sam spread his hands out, gestured to the house, to the farm at large. “Now we do.”

“What are you saying?” Dean asked. “That you’re, what—giving in? You’re just gonna roll over for the Brits?”

“No one’s rolling over, Dean.” Sam sighed. “And you’re right—we got a system over here, one we’ve been working with our entire life. But that doesn’t mean it’s not flawed.”

“So?” Dean asked.

“So.” Sam grabbed his glass and leaned back in his chair. “We still got work to do.”

///

Some days it’s a little slow at Rose’s garage. Someone books an appointment hours after the last one, or someone calls and cancels because it turns out they hit a button on their dash by accident, or it was just a loose wire their kid was able to fix.

Most of the time Dean sits with Rose in the yard, handing her whatever she needs from the toolbox nestled between his boots. Today she has to run into town for errands, so Sharon invites him inside to get out of the sun.

She sets a plate of cookies and a pitcher of iced tea on the table and says, “Help yourself.”

“You make these?” Dean asks, grabbing a cookie and pouring himself a glass.

Sharon sits down next to him and shakes her head. “Rose did.”

They’re good—sugar cookies, the kind that are gooey in the middle. Dean washes it down with iced tea and grabs a few more, sets some aside to give to Cas when he gets home. Sharon catches him and gives him a smile.

“How’s the garden coming along?” she asks.

Dean swallows, licks crumbs off his lips. “He, uh. He wants to make his own tea. But I gotta make more planter boxes for that. Guess the vegetables shouldn’t be near the herbs, or whatever. I have no idea.”

Sharon hums thoughtfully and drinks from her glass, the ice rattling around on the bottom. Dean shifts in his chair, leans closer to her.

“Can I ask you something?”

Sharon nods. “‘Course.”

Dean hesitates, tries to decide if he should bother, if it’s appropriate. Feels like maybe he’s violating their privacy. Sharon waits patiently, hands folded in front of her. Fuck it.

“How did you and Rose meet?” he asks.

For a minute she just looks at him and Dean’s stomach tightens. He opens his mouth to apologize, to tell her to forget it, but then she leans back in her chair and smiles, more to herself than to him.

“Stupidly,” she says. Dean blinks at her and she grins. “Rose was my patient.”

“Your patient?”

“She used to drag race when she was younger,” Sharon says. When Dean huffs out a laugh, Sharon joins him. “Like I said, stupid. She got into an accident and needed surgery. I was her surgeon.”

“Wow,” Dean says. Then, “You don’t operate anymore?”

“Retired.” Sharon holds her hand out in front of him, unsteady with a visible tremor. “Don’t trust myself to start cutting people open when I can barely hold a pen some days.”

“I’m sorry,” Dean says. “That must be hard.”

“It took some adjusting,” Sharon agrees. “Rose and I—it was hard, for a little while. You get into a routine, then something comes along and messes it all up. It’s a lot to deal with.”

“Yeah,” Dean says. He clears his throat and says, “I bet.”

“How about you and Cas?” Sharon asks. “How’d you boys meet?”

Dean licks his lips and looks away, feels the tips of his ears burn. He fights back the urge to remind her it’s not like that, that he and Cas are just friends. Instead, he says, “That is a long—very long—story.”

///

There’s another cactus on his windowsill when he gets home, a miniature version of the ones he’s seen growing on the side of the road in Arizona. Maybe this one needs more sun, too. He goes to Cas’s room to ask him but the lights are off, no sign that anyone’s been in there for hours, so Dean heads for the shower.

He finds Cas in the living room after, frowning at something on his laptop. Cas looks up when he enters, closes his laptop lid and stands up.

“Good, you’re home,” he says.

“Yeah,” Dean says. “Uh, what’s—”

“I need to show you something,” Cas says. Before Dean can say anything, he wanders out of the living room and into the kitchen, out the back door.

Cas leads him across the yard, barefoot, and stops at the door of the woodshed. He opens it and gestures for Dean to go inside. Dean frowns at him but does as he’s told, ducking his head to get in through the door. It smells like damp earth, like wood and dust inside. Cas follows him in and points towards a box in the corner.

“There,” he says.

Dean walks over to the box and peeks in. The orange cat chirps up at him, purrs, and stretches a paw over the backs of three newborn kittens.

Dean sighs. “Great.”

“I didn’t know she was pregnant,” Cas says. “I just thought she was fat.”

Dean looks at him. “Y’know, I’m surprised you ever get laid.”

Cas rolls his eyes, ignores him. He bends down next to the box and scoops out one of the kittens, a white one with black patches on its back and ears. It makes a high-pitched screeching noise but otherwise doesn’t do anything. Its eyes aren’t even open yet.

“What should we do?” Cas asks.

“Nothing.”

“Dean—”

“I don’t know, Cas. The only thing we can do is get her fixed so she doesn’t have more.”

Carefully, Cas sets the kitten back into the box. “She could get hit by a car. Or—they could get eaten. There’s coyotes out here.”

Dean rubs at his eyes. “Cas.”

Cas just looks at him, that sad, kicked-puppy look he managed to perfect over the years. The one Dean hates because any argument he could ever come up with shrivels into nothing as soon as he sees it.

So he doesn’t bother saying anything, just huffs and stomps out of the woodshed.

///

The day Sam left, Dean spent all morning with him down in his bedroom, helping him get his boxes labelled and ready to go. Sam didn’t have many belongings—never really had room or reason to keep things—but in the few years they lived at the bunker he managed to collect a few trinkets and swipe a few books out from under Ketch’s nose.

Carrying boxes out to Sam’s car, Dean said, “We’ll keep the room empty for you.”

Sam took the box out of his arms and shoved it into the backseat.

“Just—y’know. In case,” Dean said.

Sam straightened up and turned around to look at him. He didn’t say anything for a long moment, just fiddled with his keys before he gave Dean a nod and said, “Sure thing.”

///

It takes Cas a few hours to get everything set up. He runs into town while Dean sorts the recycling, cleans the stove top and inside the oven. He’s in the middle of organizing the fridge when Cas comes back with bags full of pet supplies and stops in the kitchen to fill a bowl with water.

He pauses, looks down at Dean sitting on the floor, at the spray bottle and pile of soggy paper towels. Then he meets Dean’s eye.

“Are you stress-cleaning?” he asks.

Dean looks away. “No.”

Cas frowns. “You are.”

“No, I’m not,” Dean says. “I’m just—”

“Stress-cleaning,” Cas says. He sets the water bowl down and asks, “What’s wrong?”

Dean drops the rag he’s using onto the floor and scratches at the back of his neck, shrugs. “It’s nothing, Cas. Don’t worry about it.”

Cas nibbles his bottom lip, looks in the direction of the downstairs bedroom.

“I can bring them up to the attic, if you’d rather,” he says. “Or clean out the spare bedroom upstairs, or put them in the basement.”

“Kinda cold in the basement, don’tcha think?”

“I bought pet blankets,” Cas says.

Dean rolls his eyes and gets off the floor, his knee throbbing. He closes the fridge door and tosses the rag into the sink, turns to face Cas, who watches him, waits.

“Just leave ‘em. And if—” Dean swallows. “If we end up needing that room later, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. But you’re already set up in there, so. It’s fine.”

Cas studies him for a moment before he nods. “All right.”

///

That night, Dean shuts the door to his bedroom and paces a little, tries to decide if he wants to read or listen to music or just jack off quick and pass out. He ends up sitting on the edge of his mattress, pulls his shoebox out from under the bed.

It’s been eight months since he last opened it. Eight months since that first night they moved in, when his window didn’t have curtains, when he left boxes unpacked because he was convinced the Brits would change their mind and let them go home.

Everything is exactly where he left it, right down to the dust on the lid. The books and the photographs, the stray bullets, the mix tapes with the faded labels.

He picks them up, the books and the tapes, the photographs, and looks around his room for a place to put them.

///

A few weeks ago, Dean pinned a list to the corkboard in the barn. On the top, in thick, black letters, he wrote **  
_PROJECTS._  
** For a while, there was only one item on the list:

  * Planter boxes



Now, just before they head out, Dean says, “Just a sec.” He wanders over to the barn and slips inside, Cas following him to the open door where he stops, waits with his thermos of coffee in hand. Dean grabs a pen from his desk and scribbles another item onto the list:

  * Planter boxes
  * Bookshelves



///

“I have an idea,” Cas says, which is always dangerous. He drives with one hand on the wheel, the other balancing his thermos on his knee. He looks over at Dean, quick, before looking back at the road. He says, “You might not like it.”

“Not filling me with confidence here, bud,” Dean says.

“I think we should get chickens,” Cas says.

Dean frowns at him. “Like, for dinner?”

Cas rolls his eyes. “No.”

“Oh,” Dean says. “You mean, like, chickens. Like chicken-chickens.”

Cas frowns at him. “What?”

“Why do you want chickens?”

“We could save money on eggs,” Cas says. “And we have the room.”

“Right. First it’s cats, now chickens,” Dean says. “Next you’re gonna want cows, or—or horses, or something.”

“Actually, I was thinking goats,” Cas says. “But I guess a cow could be useful.”

Dean looks at him.

“I’m joking,” Cas says.

Dean huffs and looks out the front window. He feels Cas’s eyes on him, searching for a moment. Then Cas reaches forward and turns on the radio, turns back to the road.

///

“Actually, that’s not a bad idea,” Sam says when Dean tells him.

After last time they decided to try this new thing out where they call each other just to talk—Sam’s idea—and Dean figures this is as good a topic as any.

“Dude,” he says, pulling his cigarette out of his mouth. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”

“Your side is stupid,” Sam says. He’s slightly out of breath, a crackle of wind coming from the other end of the line, the sound of Sam fumbling with his phone. Dean frowns.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“Sorry,” Sam says. “Kilgore’s a puller.”

“Kilgore?”

“Yeah. He’s a mastiff from the shelter,” Sam says. “I started volunteering.”

“What, online classes and bartending wasn’t enough for you?” Dean asks.

“I like keeping busy.”

“Oh, well. Cookie for you,” Dean says. He crushes his cigarette against the porch railing, brushes away the ashes and shoves the butt into his empty beer bottle. “Y’know, Max wants us to hunt.”

“I know,” Sam says. “He’s called me, too.”

“You ever think about it?”

“I dunno,” Sam says. “I’m kinda busy. I’m still working the phones here, too.”

“Yeah.” Dean sighs and plunks down in his chair.

“You?” Sam asks.

He pulls at a loose thread in his jeans. “I’unno. I mean—I got work, so. And—y’know.”

“Well, I mean, they didn’t say we can’t hunt, period,” Sam says. “Maybe it’d be good for you to get out some.”

Dean shifts in his chair. “I don’t know the first thing about chickens.”

Thankfully, Sam lets the change of subject slide.

“So?” He says. “Learn. You know how to use Google.”

Dean rubs at his face, looks out towards the yard. Cas is right about one thing—they do have the room. Even with the barn and the woodshed, with Cas’s growing garden, they still have land they’re not doing anything with.

“First it’s the garden. Fine, herbs, whatever. Useful. But then it’s not just herbs, it’s vegetables, and—and fucking _tea_ ,” Dean says. “Then—then he wants to foster stray cats. Now he wants fucking chickens. I just—I don’t get it. I don’t get where this is coming from.”

Sam doesn’t say anything.

“I thought he would’ve—” Dean stops, bites the words off.

After a minute, Sam asks, “You thought he would’ve what?”

Dean opens his mouth, closes it again, can’t force the words out.

“He still has it,” he says instead.

“Yeah,” Sam says. “I know.”

“So why’s he doing this?” Dean asks.

Sam is quiet on the other end, long enough that Dean checks his phone to make sure they haven’t lost connection. Finally, he hears Sam exhale, slow and steady, too-patient in a way that makes Dean antsy.

“I think maybe you should ask him that,” he says.


	5. Chapter 5

Humidity makes Cas’s hair curl around his temples, at the back of his neck. Dean keeps catching himself looking at it, keeps losing focus on what he’s doing every time Cas swipes a hand through it, brushes it off his forehead.

“This is unbearable,” Cas says.

Dean rolls his eyes, more for show than anything, and says, “Stop whining and help me.”

Cas huffs, gets down on the ground with him to help set his new planter in just the right spot, gets his muscles working as he digs through the dirt to pack it into place. “I’m not _whining_ , I’m sweating. I hate it.”

“I’unno, I think it can be fun sometimes.” Dean gives him a lewd grin.

Cas shoots him a glare. Then, he says, “At least that has a more enjoyable outcome.”

“Well, hey,” Dean says, face warm. “I’ll stop making these for you, then. No skin off my nose.”

Cas sighs. “I’m not ungrateful, I’m just—”

“The non-fun kind of sweaty.” Dean nods. “Got it.”

They pack in the last bit of dirt and Cas gives the planter box a wiggle. Satisfied it’ll stay in place, he stands up and plucks at his t-shirt, pulls it up to wipe the sweat off his face, flashing his hips, his stomach. Dean swallows and looks away, packs more dirt along the bottom. Just to be safe.

Cas lets his t-shirt drop down, dirty fingerprints smudged on the hem. Then he reaches out his hand and Dean takes it, lets himself be helped to his feet, his bad knee making him wobble. Cas steadies him with his other hand, watches him to make sure he won’t fall over.

“I’m good,” Dean says.

Gently, Cas squeezes his shoulder and says, “Thank you.”

“Yeah,” Dean says. “No problem.”

Cas gives him a smile and lets go of his shoulder. “I’m gonna go shower.”

“Thank god,” Dean says. “You fucking reek, dude.”

///

“We could order in every once in a while, you know,” Cas says, wandering downstairs just as Dean finishes making dinner. He’s dressed in a clean t-shirt and track pants, his hair still a mess.

“We have a kitchen, might as well use it.” Dean adds the finishing touches to two club sandwiches and says, “Besides, after a life eating at shitty diners, what’s better than a homemade meal?”

“Sex,” Cas says, deadpan. “And cheap egg rolls.”

“Dude, no way,” Dean says. He grabs a beer and a plate. “Good homemade food? That’s as good as sex. Maybe even better.”

“Then you’ve been having bad sex,” Cas says.

Dean stares at him. Cas stares back, unmoving, eyes bright with mirth. Dean breaks first, shoves the plate into Cas’s chest, their fingers brushing when Cas reaches for it, and says, “Just take your damn sandwich.”

Outside, Cas points to a spot near his garden, where two trees are clumped closely together, and around a mouthful of food, says, “I think that’d be a good spot.”

“For what?”

“A chicken coop,” Cas says.

Dean huffs. “Right.”

“We could install a gate, keep it open during the day.” Cas swallows a bite of food and adds, “I read that free-range chickens lay more eggs.”

Dean pulls a piece of bacon out of his sandwich and pops it into his mouth. Cas looks over at him, beer halfway to his lips before he pauses, sets it back down on his knee again.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“What?” Dean blinks at him. “Yeah, I’m—why wouldn’t I be?”

Still watching him, Cas says, “You tell me.”

Dean fidgets uncomfortably for a minute before he asks, “Are you happy?”

Cas frowns at him. “What?”

“Y’know. Just—being here,” Dean says, gesturing to the yard with his beer bottle. “Being with—I mean, you used to fight in celestial wars and—and save the world. Now you’re growing vegetables and talking about chickens.”

“And… you think that means I’m not happy?” Cas asks.

“No, I just—”

“Are you happy?” Cas asks.

Dean opens his mouth, closes it again. “It—that doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it matters, Dean,” Cas says.

“Well, yeah. Sure, I’m happy.”

Cas studies him for a minute. “It’s all right if you’re not.”

“I’m happy,” Dean says again. He grins at him and says, “Like a pig in shit.”

Cas sighs and sets his plate down on the side table. Dean drains his beer and fidgets with the empty bottle for a minute before getting up out of his seat and collecting the dishes. Just as he moves to head inside, Cas reaches out and catches his arm. Dean looks down at him, surprised, and turns to face him.

When their eyes meet, Cas rubs the pad of his thumb along the underside of Dean’s wrist, slow and careful. It sends heat curling up from Dean’s fingertips, pools it in the bowl of his hips.

“Thank you for dinner,” Cas says, quiet.

Then he pulls away, lets go of Dean’s wrist to search through his pocket, digs out his lighter. Dean blinks, dazed, before he shakes himself and heads inside, the heat of Cas’s touch lingering.

///

There are advantages to having a legitimate address, one that isn’t a secret underground lair disguised as an abandoned factory stashed away down a long, one-lane gravel road.

One is that they now get junk mail and fliers for art festivals right at their house, where they collect dust on top of the fridge instead of in a P.O. box in town.

Another is that, when Dean gets completely, totally sloshed at the local watering hole and gets his keys taken away from him, a very nice cab driver will drop him off at his front door.

///

He finds Cas waiting for him when he finally manages to get inside.

Dean gives him a wave and says, “Hey good-lookin’.”

“Sam called,” Cas says. “He said you called him and that you were, uh—’completely fucking blitzed’, I think were the words he used.”

“Yeah. There were cheap shots at the bar.” Dean slumps against the wall, tries to get his boots off without bending down to untie them first. It doesn’t work. “I think I had a few.”

Cas’s mouth twitches. “You think?”

Dean scrapes at his face with his hand, tries to stand up straight, but the room spins underneath him, makes him wobble on his feet. Cas reaches out to steady him.

“Here,” he says. “I’ll help you.”

“Y’always do,” Dean says. Cas doesn’t reply, just bends down to untie his boots for him. Dean kicks them off towards the closet and Cas touches his arm, leads him up to his room, stays quiet even as Dean mutters about how many stairs they have.

Cas sits him down on his bed and disappears down the hall, leaves Dean to figure out how to get his jacket off by himself. He figures it out, but then there’s his flannel shirt and a button on his jeans that’s almost impossible. Cas comes back with a glass of water just as Dean manages to get his jeans off, left only in his shirts and boxers.

“Hi,” Dean says.

“Hello.” Cas holds out the glass of water and says, “You should drink this.”

Dean reaches for it, slides his fingers up Cas’s wrist instead. Cas inhales, slow, but doesn’t look away, even when Dean rubs along his pulse point, gently tugs him closer. Cas lets himself be pulled in, takes a step forward.

“Can I ask you somethin’?” Dean says. He lets his hand fall from Cas’s wrist, touches the bottom of his faded Jethro Tull t-shirt instead.

Cas exhales. He sets the glass on the nightstand and asks, “What?”

“Where d’you keep it?”

Cas frowns, opens his mouth. Then he gets it, he clues in, and his expression softens. He reaches up to his neck and pulls a piece of leather string out from the collar of his t-shirt. At the end of it hangs a small vial, a white-blue fog swirling against the glass.

“Just in case?” Dean asks. Slowly, he moves his hand up, slips it under the hem of Cas’s t-shirt, feels warm skin against his fingertips.

“A reminder,” Cas says.

Dean swallows. He traces his thumb along the band of Cas’s pyjama bottoms, touches the skin stretched over his hipbone before dipping under the fabric, hears Cas’s breath hitch above him.

Quietly, Cas says, “Dean.”

“Sam says I push you away.”

After a long moment, Cas says, “Maybe. Sometimes.”

“I don’t—” Dean licks his lips. “I’m not good at this.”

“I disagree,” Cas says. Dean looks up at him and Cas says, “You’re very good at sending mixed signals.”

With Cas watching him, Dean moves his other hand, pulls at the strings of Cas’s pyjama pants. He manages to get the bow undone before Cas reaches down to stop him from going any further.

Dean drops his hand, pulls the other out from under Cas’s clothes. “You don’t want—”

“I do,” Cas says. “Believe me.”

“But?”

“You’re drunk,” Cas says.

“M’not that drunk,” Dean says.

Cas smiles at him and Dean’s head swims a little. Cas grabs the glass of water off the nightstand and places it in his hand, waits until Dean sighs and drinks some, makes a face. Dean hands it back and Cas moves away, towards the door, until Dean reaches for him again.

“Just—stay,” he says. “Please?”

Cas looks towards the door, at the bed, at the empty space stretching out behind Dean. Then at him again. Without a word, he puts the glass back down on the nightstand.

///

His head throbs. His room is too hot, the sun burning through his eyelids, something warm and solid pressing against his back that makes his t-shirt stick to his skin. For a minute he just focuses on breathing, on trying to not puke. Cautiously he opens his eyes to check the time: a quarter to seven.

Something shifts behind him, the mattress creaking slightly with the movement. Dean turns to look over his shoulder, spots the familiar mess of dark hair poking out from the blanket, Cas breathing steady, eyes closed.

Dean’s stomach swoops in a weird mix of nerves and relief. He struggles to sit up, his head swimming, and reaches out to grab the glass of water on his nightstand. He swallows a mouthful down, his throat dry and mouth sticky, grimaces at the taste.

Then, with one last glance over his shoulder, he turns off his alarm and gets out of bed.

///

“You look like hammered dogshit, kid,” Rose says by way of greeting as Dean struggles to get his kickstand into place.

“Yeah,” he says. His head still hurts, but the fresh air stopped his stomach’s threats to empty itself on the side of the road, at least. He rubs at his face and says, “I might be kinda hung-over.”

“No shit,” Rose says. “You want some juice?”

“Nah.” Dean waves it off. “A few hours under a car and I’ll be right as rain.”

Rose inhales, steady, sets her shoulders and meets his eye. Dean feels his heart sink before she even opens her mouth to say, “About that.”

“Lemme guess,” Dean says. “Dry spell?”

“‘Fraid so,” she says. “You got your appointments today but after that, we got nothing booked. Not sure if we’ll get anything until that big car show rolls into town at the end of June.”

“Crap,” Dean says. “Rose—that’s a month away.”

“I know,” she says, voice gentle. “I’m sorry, kiddo.”

Dean wipes at his mouth, feels sick again, his stubble scratching his palm. He looks down the road, towards home and swallows down his disappointment, turns back to Rose.

“It’s okay,” he says. He tries to smile and says, “You guys do enough for me as it is.”

“You’re a good man, Dean,” Rose says. She squeezes his arm affectionately, hand warm and grip strong, gives him a rare, full smile, one that brightens her entire face and makes her look ten years younger.

Then she lets go, points in the direction of the garage and says, “Now get to work before I fire your drunk ass.”

///

After work, Dean parks his bike down a long country road, the smell of fertilizer heavy in the air, and climbs on top of a fence that separates a pasture from the ditch.

He pulls out his pack of cigarettes and smokes with the sun warm against his back, watches as a few curious horses wander over. He pets one on the nose, picks a few burrs out of its mane before it gets bored of him and rejoins the herd.

No one in their right mind would call him a coward. He’s hunted monsters his entire life, werewolves and vampires and demons. He’s been stabbed, and shot, tortured, and used as bait for things that wanted to eat him.

But there’s something waiting for him at home, something with gentle hands and a soft, crooked smile, and more patience than he deserves.

And so he sits on a fence on the side of the road and watches horses graze. As the sun starts to set behind him, he pulls his phone out of his pocket, spots two missed calls from Cas. After a long moment, he deletes the messages and dials Max’s number.

///

It’s dark by the time he finally slips in through the garage door. The kitchen light is on, the television murmuring in the living room, but the couch is empty. There’s no dishes in the sink, no sign of Cas anywhere.

Dean showers and digs his toiletry bag out from under the sink, packs his toothbrush and deodorant, doesn’t bother with his shaving cream. He brings it to his room and pulls his duffle out of the closet, throws in a change of clothes. Then he wanders downstairs to the basement, where it’s dark and damp, and grabs his machete off the far wall, one of his guns, and an angel blade, just in case.

He climbs the stairs and nearly barrels into Cas at the top. He’s in his night clothes already, smells of weed and fresh air, and he glances down at Dean’s duffle, face carefully blank.

“I’m, uh—I called Max,” Dean says. “Gonna help him with those vamps.”

He holds his breath, steels himself, but Cas doesn’t say anything. He just gives Dean’s duffle one final look and walks into the living room.

Dean exhales, quick, anger bubbling up from his stomach. He sets his bag on the kitchen table and follows.

“So that’s it, huh?” he asks. “Not gonna say anything?”

Cas sits down and doesn’t look at him, eyes on the TV. “What do you want me to say?”

“Whatever. Forget it.” He turns back to head into the kitchen, to grab his bag. Then he stops, turns around again, and says, “You’re such a fucking child sometimes, you know that?”

“You’re the one who wants a fight, Dean,” Cas says.

“No, I want you to stow your stoic, silent-treatment bullshit,” Dean snaps. “I know you’re pissed at me, so just get pissed. Yell at me, throw something at me, I don’t fucking care. Just do something!”

“Fine. I’m pissed,” Cas says. “Satisfied?”

“No.”

Cas sighs. “Of course not.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dean says.

Cas looks at him, expression hard. Then he looks away, to the duffle on the kitchen table, then back to the television. “You obviously have some place you need to be, so maybe you should go.”

Dean grits his teeth and shakes his head. Heading back into the kitchen, he grabs his bag off the table, takes Baby’s keys off the hook hanging by the garage door, and, slinging his bag over his shoulder, walks out.


	6. Chapter 6

“C’mon, let us buy you a drink,” Alicia says, after they’ve washed the blood off their hands in a gas station sink and driven into town to celebrate at a local dive.

The adrenaline’s still pumping so Dean agrees, orders a shot of whiskey and makes eyes at the bartender, a middle-aged woman with dyed red hair and flower tattoos growing up her neck, a smile that makes his fingers itch.

“Here’s to a job well done,” Max says, clinking their glasses together. “Gotta say, it’s an honor to hunt with you, Dean.”

Dean’s cheeks heat. “Ah, come on.”

“No, no, he’s right,” Alicia says. “How many hunters out there can say they worked a case with Dean Winchester and managed to take down more vamps than him?”

Dean sniffs, drains his glass. “I gave you guys some freebies.”

“Uh-huh,” Max says.

The bartender stops by again and he taps his glass. She pours him another shot, eyes on his, and Dean gives her a smile, leans forward to check her out as she walks away.

“So. You’re not hunting much anymore,” Alicia says. “What have you guys been up to?”

Dean slumps back in his stool again, grabs his glass.

“Sam’s doing online classes. I got a job as a mechanic at a local garage. Work’s kinda dried up at the moment, though,” Dean says. “And, uh. Cas does some Habitat for Humanity construction kinda thing, building houses.”

“Wow,” Max says.

“That’s practically domestic,” Alicia says, and Max grins.

Dean huffs and downs his shot.

“Anyway. We’re gonna play pool,” Max says. “Wanna join?”

“Nah,” Dean says, eyeing the bartender again. “Think I’m gonna have another drink.”

The whiskey’s calmed his nerves a little, his muscles loose. He’s got a room booked at the motel up the road and heat licking up his spine, some leftover energy and a good idea of how to spend it.

The bartender catches him looking and walks over again, whiskey in hand, and smiles at him. “Thirsty, are we?”

“Something like that,” he says. He digs his wallet out and grabs a few bills to pay, a small packet slipping out of the billfold and landing on the bartop. Dean’s stomach tightens at the sight of it.

“You a gardener?” the bartender asks, nodding to the seeds.

“Uh, no, not—those are for someone else.” He picks up the packet and turns it over, reads the label. Leeks—Cas suggested them for soup. Dean must’ve forgotten about them.

The bartender pours him his drink, gives him a look, and says, “I’m off in an hour.”

“Oh?” Dean says. She nods and he forces a grin, says, “Good to know.”

He’s got a motel room that smells like stale cigarettes and mothballs and cheap laundry detergent. He’s got a packet of seeds in his wallet, a dull ache in his knee, and something in his chest that pulls him in the opposite direction.

The bartender walks away and Dean fiddles with the packet a moment longer before carefully tucking it back into his wallet. He downs his shot and slips off his barstool, finds Max and Alicia over by the pool table where they’ve managed to sucker some poor guy into playing. He catches their attention and gives them a wave, then heads for the door.

///

Cas’s truck isn’t in the driveway when he gets home. Dean’s stomach turns, a weird mix of relief and disappointment.

He made a surprise stop on his way back when he found a canoe for sale on someone’s lawn, got the guy to help tie it to Baby’s roof. At least this way Cas won’t see him dragging it into the barn.

He hears Cas’s truck pull in after he’s cut the canoe in half and sanded it down. He gets a coat of paint on both ends and leaves it to dry, sweat on the back of his neck, his arms sore. After washing his hands in the sink, he crosses out the second item on his list:

**_PROJECTS_ **

  * Planter boxes
  * ~~Bookshelves~~



He looks at it for a minute, then adds another item. Satisfied, he pulls out his phone and makes a call, grabs his cigarettes and heads out the barn door to wait on the front porch, heat still coming off Cas’s truck as he passes.

///

Dean holds up a brown paper bag and says, “Extra egg rolls.”

Cas looks at the bag, then at him, then opens the door further for Dean to step inside.

He’s got the window open to let in fresh air and, in the corner where Sam’s bed used to be, there’s now a cat tree. The orange cat watches him from the top of it, half-asleep, as her kittens eat out of a bowl in the middle of the floor.

“Wow,” Dean says. “They got big fast.”

Cas sits on the floor, next to the biggest kitten, one that looks like its mom, and says, “They do that.”

“Yeah,” Dean says.

His nose feels scratchy already but he ignores it, sits down a little further away from the cat bowl and reaches into the bag. He pulls out boxes of noodles and a container of rice, the egg rolls and dip. He passes half of it over to Cas, along with napkins and chopsticks, and opens his box of chow mein.

Cas watches the kittens as he eats, watches their mother jump down from her post to groom them. Dean watches Cas, watches his hands, his fingers on the chopsticks.

“So, I was thinking,” Dean says. Cas grabs an egg roll out of the bag and Dean says, “Maybe we could have an outdoor cage kinda thing attached to the coop.”

Cas dips his egg roll in plum sauce, uses the lid as a plate. He nudges one of the kittens away when it tries to sniff at his food.

“Uh, so. Y’know. The chickens can go out at night, still.”

Cas chews for a minute, quiet, then looks at him. “Why are you doing this?”

Dean sets his chow mein aside, meets Cas's eye. “Because I was a dick to you and—I’m trying to say sorry here, Cas.”

“You could just say it.” Cas looks down at his food, stabs at it with his chopsticks. “That works, too.”

“I’m sorry. I am,” Dean says. “But—it’s not just that.”

Cas sighs. “Dean, for once, could you please just tell me what you want?”

Dean opens his mouth, tries to force the words out.

“I—I wanna build a chicken coop,” he says. Then, “With you. Get chickens and shit. Together—I wanna do it with you.”

Cas studies him for a moment, his expression carefully blank. Dean waits, breath held, watches as Cas’s resolve breaks. His chin wobbles, barely noticeable, and his shoulders relax as the tension finally drains out of him.

Quietly, Cas says, “I’d like that.”

///

There’s already coffee brewing when Dean wakes up.

His plan had been to try and sleep in for a change, be lazy for a little bit before going out to the barn to work, but curiosity gets the best of him and forces him out of bed. He pulls his track pants on, grabs his t-shirt from off the floor, and wanders downstairs to find Cas at the kitchen table, mug in hand.

“Mornin’, sunshine,” Dean says. “You’re up early.”

Cas grunts at him and drinks from his mug.

Dean helps himself to coffee and plunks down in the chair opposite. Cas sits motionless except for his breathing, his eyes closed. Dean just watches him for a minute, listens to the rain hitting the roof, the rumble of thunder.

“No work today, huh?” he asks.

Cas doesn’t open his eyes, stays quiet. But just as Dean’s leaning across the table to snap his fingers under his nose, to make sure he hasn’t fallen asleep again, Cas sighs and lets go of his mug to rub at his face.

“I’m bringing the cats to the shelter today,” he says. “The kittens are old enough to be adopted.”

“Oh,” Dean says. “That’s good, right?”

Cas picks up his mug again and doesn’t say anything. Dean figured this was a bad idea—Cas might not have been born human, but he’s grown into it, developed human traits. Like getting overly attached to things you take care of, things you end up feeling responsible for.

Dean taps his mug for a minute, thinking. Then he says, “You wanna keep one?”

Cas looks up at him. “Really?”

Dean shrugs. “Why not?”

“But—” Cas says. “I thought, with your allergies—”

“They’re not that bad,” Dean says. His nose gets a bit stuffy if he goes into the room, but he risked petting one the other night and didn’t break out into hives, so he counts that as a win. “So, y’know. If you want.”

“Well.” Cas plays with his mug, rubs his thumb along the handle, slow enough to be distracting. He says, “I’m not worried about the kittens, but I read that older cats have a harder time getting adopted.”

“Okay.” Dean nods. “That’s settled, then.”

///

Dean helps Cas with the cats as much as he can. Mostly he just opens the front door for him so Cas can walk to his truck with the cage without having to worry about the mother escaping. Cas loads them into the passenger seat and climbs in, his sweater damp from the rain, and gets the engine going.

“Good luck,” Dean says.

Cas gives him a small smile and backs out of the driveway, heads down the road in the direction of town. Dean lights a cigarette and walks to the barn.

///

It takes a few hours, but he manages to add the finishing touches to the bookshelves by the afternoon. He opens the barn doors and sighs at the rain still coming down in sheets, heads to the garage to find a tarp. By the time he gets both shelves inside the house he’s soaked through.

Carefully, he lugs them up the stairs one at a time, his shirt clinging to his skin, his jeans heavy. He sets one against the wall by his bedroom door and carries the other down to the end of the hall. The orange cat eyes him from her spot in the middle of Cas’s bed.

“Oh. Didn’t know Cas had company,” Dean says. She doesn’t move, just watches him.

Dean goes back to the shelf, places it against Cas’s desk and leaves enough room for him to move it if he wants. He steps back to look at it, makes sure it’s not too out of place, and nods to himself, satisfied. Until he spots the mug on the nightstand.

Dean huffs and goes to grab it, pauses in front of the cat instead. He holds out his hand, lets her sniff it before he pets her head, behind her ears, her fur tickling his palm.

“Settling right in, are we?” he asks, scratching under her chin. She closes her eyes and leans into it, starts to purr. Dean smiles and says, “Good.”

///

“Why is there half a canoe in my bedroom?”

Dean looks up from his mess of books and records, his small pile of boxes, and feels his face heat. He stands up, his knee twinging with the effort, and gestures to the corner of his room where his half of the canoe now sits. “It’s—it’s a bookshelf.”

Cas looks at it and says, “Oh.”

“You don’t—if you don’t like it, I can move it. I just thought—”

“No, I like it.” Cas smiles. “Thank you.”

Dean clears his throat and looks down, spots the cactus in Cas’s hands. He points to it and says, “Lemme guess—more sunlight?”

Cas looks down at it, too, like he forgot it was there. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

“Y’know, that windowsill is gonna run outta room soon,” Dean says.

“Well, then.” Cas looks up at him, a glint in his eye. “I could always shove it up your ass.”

Dean blinks, opens and closes his mouth. “You saying the sun shines out of my ass, Cas?”

“I’m not saying that.”

“You sure?” Dean asks. “Cuz it kinda sounds like you are.”

Cas rolls his eyes. Dean grins at him and claps him on the shoulder, then waves him off in the direction of the window. Cas puts the cactus next to the others as Dean heads back to his mess. He sits down and watches Cas out of the corner of his eye, watches him touch the spine on one of his books.

“I should read more,” he says. “Do you mind?”

“Knock yourself out,” Dean says, digging through his pile. He grabs the record player first and places it in the middle of the shelf, where he refitted the wood slats inside the canoe to make more room.

Cas grabs _Slaughterhouse Five_ and sits down on Dean’s bed, the mattress springs squeaking. Dean picks his records out one by one, rearranges them in alphabetical order by band before he slides them next to the record player.

“You know, if you made more of those, I’m sure people would buy them,” Cas says from behind him. Dean glances over at him, finds Cas stretched out on his bed, legs crossed at the ankle, book open in his lap. Something flutters in his stomach and he looks away as Cas says, “I’ve heard people like, uh—D.I.Y. but don’t actually like doing it themselves.”

Dean snorts. “Sounds about right.”

“You might enjoy it,” Cas says. “Just while work is thin.”

“Yeah,” Dean says. He grabs a handful of books, a few he stole from libraries and lost and found boxes over the years, and says, “Maybe.”

They fall quiet after that. Cas reads while Dean manages to get the pile of books and records in place before he gets up and grabs another box out of his closet. He only has a few, and they’re small, but he’s taking his time, making up for all the years he couldn’t afford to be meticulous.

After another hour he manages to finish, his shelf still a little on the empty side, but at least it’s neat and organized. He rubs at his face and yawns. The rain and the dull grey light, the dust from the boxes, the ache in his muscles from moving things around all day makes his eyes heavy.

He breaks down the boxes and sets them aside to put in the recycling later. His knee pops when he stands up, making him grunt, back a bit stiff from sitting on the floor for hours.

“Think I’m gonna crash for an hour or two,” Dean says. “The dust is giving me a headache.”

When Cas doesn’t respond, Dean looks up and finds him asleep, book left open and abandoned on his stomach, moving gently with his breathing. Dean scratches at the back of his neck and looks towards his bedroom door, then back at the bed again, at the empty space next to Cas.

He didn’t have much money to his name when they moved out, but Dean splurged and bought himself a queen bed now that he has a bedroom bigger than a high school maintenance closet. He always spreads out in the middle of it when he goes to sleep, but still manages to wake up on the right side every morning.

Currently, Cas is passed out on the left. Dean could shake him awake, ask him to go back to his own room, to leave. Dean watches him, watches the rise and fall of Cas’s chest, and nibbles his bottom lip in thought.

Carefully, he reaches out and pulls the book from under Cas’s hands. He folds down the top corner of the page he’s on to mark his place and sets the book on his night stand.

///

Something scratches along the inside of Dean’s right arm, scrapes nails along the muscle. Something hot and barbed and poisonous surges through his system, makes his muscles tense and his breath catch, his heart pump blood through his veins so hard he can feel it, feel it throbbing underneath his skin, fast and powerful enough to set his teeth on edge.

“No,” he says, his mouth full of ash. He chokes on smoke, smells sulphur on his skin. “Not again.”

He feels a hand on his shoulder, familiar, gentle. Somewhere, a quiet voice says his name, says, “Dean?”

He gasps and bolts upright, his stomach rolling, skin clammy with cold sweat. His right arm tingles, feels numb, and he clenches his fist, inhales a shaky breath.

Slowly, his room comes back to him, the dull grey light coming through the curtains, the sound of rain, the familiar shape of his desk and his nightstand. Dean swallows and grabs his arm, rubs his thumb into the skin to try and get the feeling back.

“Hey,” Cas says behind him. Dean feels the mattress shift and then Cas is there in his space, sitting up next to him, warm and scruffy and sleep-rumpled, his hair standing up in the back.

“You’re okay,” Cas says. “It was just a dream.”

Dean exhales and nods, tries to calm his breathing. He feels Cas’s eyes on him, watching him rub at his arm. He lets go, embarrassed, tries to rub the heat out of his face instead. He feels Cas shift next to him, touch his fingers to his arm, turning it over. With his opposite hand, Cas traces the skin on the inside of Dean’s elbow, feather-light and soothing.

“It’s gone, Dean,” he says. Dean doesn’t look at him and Cas says, “I promise. It’s gone.”

“Yeah,” Dean says. He swallows and looks at Cas, tries to smile against the sick feeling in his stomach.

Cas keeps drawing patterns on the inside of his arm, soft enough to tickle. Slowly the buzz, the tingle starts to fade away as the blood starts to circulate back to his hand, his fingers. He must have fallen asleep on it. Wouldn’t be the first time.

“You know, there’s not many things I miss about being an angel,” Cas says, voice quiet. He draws something that feels like a protective sigil with his index finger over the spot the mark used to be and says, “Healing was obviously useful. But so was stopping nightmares.”

Dean watches Cas’s fingers on his skin. Long, gentle fingers. “You could do that?”

“I could.” Cas nods. “I did, a few times.”

“I didn’t know.”

Cas smiles at him and says, “You weren’t supposed to.”

He draws his hand down Dean’s arm, over the underside of his wrist and into his palm to trace the lines there, turns his hand over to touch the old cuts and scars on his knuckles, the bones that healed slightly out of place. Dean watches, licks his lips, ducks his head to catch Cas’s eye. Cas looks up at him, his hand stilling.

Dean’s voice cracks when he asks, “What’s happening here, Cas?”

For a moment, Cas doesn’t say anything, just studies him. Finally, he says, “I think we’re just doing what we’ve always done.”

“Yeah?” Dean looks down at their hands, at Cas’s fingers resting over his. “And what’s that?”

Cas shrugs and says, “Making it up as we go.”


	7. Chapter 7

They agreed to meet at the park in town.

Cas found him in the downstairs bathroom that morning, wearing obnoxious yellow rubber gloves, his hands submerged up to the wrists in toilet water. Cas leaned against the doorway, his second coffee of the morning in hand, and merely looked at him.

“Don’t judge me,” Dean said.

“Never,” Cas said.

He took the Impala so he could drown his own thoughts out with music, drove into town with his stomach in knots, and tried to convince himself that everything would be fine, he was just being stupid.

That, despite everything that had happened, Sam was still his brother.

///

Dean finds him sitting on a bench under a tree, hair down to his shoulders, face a little scruffy, and flannel shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Two large dogs pant at his feet. Sam spots him and stands up, his face splitting into a grin. Dean slows his walk, eyes the dogs warily, and Sam waves him over.

“C’mon,” he says. “They’re friendly, I promise.”

“They’re big,” Dean says.

“This one’s Rush,” Sam points to the fluffy red and white one that’s some kind of sheepdog. Next, he points to the short-haired grey one that looks like a fighting dog—or like a smaller and less snarly, foaming-at-the-mouth version of a hellhound. It’s missing its left eye. Sam says, “And this one is Cutter.”

Then Sam hands him the leash belonging to the grey dog—Cutter. Dean swallows, hesitating, before Sam grabs his hand and shoves the leash into it. Cutter sniffs at his pockets for treats, nudges his hand. Dean tenses.

“Cutter’s last owner left him tied to a tree on the side of the highway,” Sam says. “He was near-starved and had an infection. That’s why his eye is gone.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Dean asks.

Sam claps him on the shoulder and says, “Because you have a soft spot for outcasts.”

Sam gathers up Rush’s leash and starts walking. Dean huffs but doesn’t argue. He looks down at Cutter, who looks back up at him, his one eye bright blue, tail wagging. Carefully, Dean reaches down and touches the top of his head, his fur surprisingly soft against his palm. He takes a step forward and Cutter follows. Together they fall into step beside Sam.

“Both of them are from the shelter?” Dean asks.

“They always need volunteers.” Sam nods. “They can train you and everything, since some of the dogs need special care. I don’t have room for my own right now so this is the next best thing.”

Dean doesn’t say anything, his throat tight. Cutter trots alongside him, looking up at him occasionally, checking to make sure he’s still there. He’s got a bit of a limp in his hind leg, most likely a side effect of being tied to a tree for days.

“Who does that to a dog?” Dean asks.

Sam shrugs. “Some people just have bad blood. You know that better than anyone.”

///

They stop at a café up the street, one that allows dogs on the patio. Dean grabs a turkey sandwich and a coffee, buys a slice of pie on a plate and lemon squares for Cas that he gets in a box to go.

Outside on the patio, sitting in the sun, Sam tells him about his classes, about his research projects, about one of the vets at the shelter—Maggie—whose grandmother was a wiccan, who knows about the life. When Dean waggles his eyebrows at him Sam blushes and ducks his head.

“It’s not like that,” he says.

“Uh-huh,” Dean says. He pulls off a piece of turkey from his sandwich and slips it under the table. Cutter takes it gently, licks his fingers after, drools on Dean’s knee.

Sam, unfortunately, notices. “Are you feeding the dog table scraps?”

“No.”

Sam laughs and shakes his head. “God, you’re so easy.”

“Shut up,” Dean says. Cutter rests his head on his leg, heavy, and Dean reaches down to pet his ears. Cutter heaves out a big sigh, content with the attention.

For a long moment everything is quiet. Sam drinks his coffee and watches the world go by, the sun on his face. Dean just pets the dog, feels his stomach start to tighten again with nerves, thoughts chewing on his brain.

“We still got lots of room on the farm. Even with the cat, and—whenever we get chickens,” he says. Sam looks at him and Dean shrugs. “Just, y’know. If you ever get tired of being a townie.”

Sam stays quiet for a minute. Then he sets his coffee down and leans forward in his chair. “Dean—”

“It’s—never mind,” Dean says. “Forget I said anything.”

Sam sighs.

“Look,” he says. “I appreciate it—I do. But I need to be on my own.”

Dean laughs humorlessly. “Yeah.”

“Don’t make this a personal thing,” Sam says. “It has nothing to do with you.”

Dean picks up his coffee mug and doesn’t say anything.

“We’ve been so tied up in each other all our lives that it’s weird not to be. I get that, trust me. It’s weird for me, too,” Sam says. “Some days all I want is to drop everything and go hunting with my big brother again.”

Dean doesn’t look at him, just tries to breathe.

“I’m always gonna be a hunter. I’m always gonna be tied to the life in some way. But this way—this level of involvement is a good fit for me,” Sam says. “I’m—I’m happy.”

Dean sniffs. Then he says. “Good. No, I—that’s good, Sam. I’m glad. I mean that.”

Sam exhales, tension draining out of his shoulders in relief. He nods. Then he breaks out into a grin.

“Come on,” he says. “Let’s go back to the park. I can show you what I’ve been teaching Cutter.”

///

“So you gave in, huh?” Sam asks later, back on the park bench under the tree. Rush digs at the roots, gets her paws dirty, and Cutter watches, sits with all his weight leaning into Dean’s leg. Dean looks at Sam, confused, and Sam says, “You’re getting chickens?”

“Oh.” Dean taps ash off his cigarette and says, “Yeah, I guess so. We’re gonna start the coop soon.”

Sam’s mouth twitches, but all he says is, “Huh.”

Dean takes a drag off his cigarette. He watches people walk along the path that cuts through the park; parents with children, young couples, a few kids trying to do tricks on their bikes. Rush catches sight of a squirrel in the tree and barks at it.

Finally, Dean asks, “What’d you say to him, before you—before you left?”

Sam doesn’t look at him for a moment, just smiles at nothing in particular. The wind picks up and blows his hair around, and it’d almost be comical if Dean didn’t feel like his insides were trying to crawl up his throat.

“Just—y’know. Take care of each other,” Sam says. Finally, he looks at Dean and says, “And to be patient with you. That you’d catch on eventually.”

“Catch on to what?” Dean asks.

With the utmost patience, Sam says, “Dean.”

He says, “You’ve been living together. For months. Alone.”

Dean stares at him.

“You let him have a cat,” Sam says. When Dean doesn’t respond, he adds, “You’re getting him _chickens_.”

“Yeah, he wants chickens,” Dean says, defensive. “We have the room for it, so. And I mean, if—if he’s staying here, then maybe he should keep busy, y’know?”

Sam’s expression falls, the amused glint disappearing. “Dean.”

“What?”

“Dude, what will it take for you to realize he’s not going anywhere?” Sam asks. “You act like he’s just gonna up and vanish without a word—”

Dean snorts. “Yeah, cuz he’s never done that before.”

“That was then. This is now,” Sam says. “Things have changed. You guys have changed.”

Dean swallows, doesn’t trust himself to open his mouth, to speak.

“He’s in love with you, Dean,” Sam says, casual, like it doesn’t make the world drop out from under Dean’s feet. “And I’m not saying it’s gonna be easy, I’m just saying, the world’s not ending anymore. So whatever excuses you tell yourself, they’re bullshit. You get that, right?”

Dean sniffs and doesn’t reply. He reaches out and pets Cutter’s head instead. The motion, the feel of fur under his hand soothes him. After a moment, the spinning in his head slows, and the ground feels solid under his feet again.

Quietly, Dean says, “I like this dog.”

Sam stares at him. Then he laughs.

“Yeah,” he says. “I know.”

///

The list hanging in the barn now reads:

**_PROJECTS_ **

  * ~~Planter boxes~~
  * ~~Bookshelves~~
  * Chicken coop



Dean spends the next morning at his bedroom desk drawing up designs. Cas stretches out on the bed, still in his pyjama pants and oversized hoodie, and uses his laptop to look for ideas as he drinks his coffee. In the end they settle for a small shed with a covered pen attached to the side.

At the hardware store, he stands in front of the wall of paint samples and asks, “What color do you want?”

Cas comes to stand next to him, trusty thermos in hand. He looks at the wall of colors for a long moment, then says, “Purple.”

“We’re not painting it purple.”

“With a blue roof.”

“No.”

“I let you name the cat,” Cas says.

“You just kept calling her ‘cat’,” Dean says. “Meat Loaf is a much better name, if you ask me.”

“No one did, but thank you,” Cas says. He plucks a color strip from the wall. “How about blood orange?”

“That’s fucking red.” Dean grabs the strip and shoves it back into place.

Cas smiles at him and Dean huffs.

“You’re a pain in the ass,” he says. “You know that?”

Still smiling, Cas says, “I was thinking we could just leave it natural.”

“Sounds good to me,” Dean says. “Let’s pay for this shit and get outta here.”

///

They set up in the backyard with a work table and tools, Dean’s blueprints held down with rocks so they won’t blow away in a gust of wind. They have to build the frame and the floor first before they can start attaching the walls and getting the inside set up with nesting boxes and ramps.

Dean follows Cas’s lead and goes where he’s pointed. He watches Cas measure the wood, mark it with a pencil, his hands steady, before he gives it to Dean to cut. Soon they get into an easy rhythm, one that feels familiar even if there’s less blood and more sawdust.

By the time they get the posts set and start working on the floor, Cas is already grumbling and pulling at the front of his t-shirt.

“For someone who sleeps completely under the covers, you sure do complain about the heat a lot,” Dean says. He sets a plank of wood down for the floor and holds it in place, careful of his fingers.

Cas moves it slightly so it’s straight, then nails it down with the gun. “That’s different.”

Dean laughs. “How?”

“I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but the house gets cold at night,” Cas says.

Dean sets the next piece of wood into place. “That’s just your room, Cas. My room is fine.”

“I know.” Cas nails it down. “I still think you cheated, by the way.”

“Hey, you’re the one who threw paper, not me.”

Cas rolls his eyes. “That’s a stupid way to decide anything.”

“What are you talking about? It’s the best way to decide everything,” Dean says, picking up more wood. “You’re just pissy cuz you don’t have the master bedroom.”

Cas glares at him and Dean beams, watches him nail the final plank down. The sun is hot on the back of his neck, makes his t-shirt cling to his skin, under his arms. He reaches up to pull at the collar.

“What’s next?” he asks.

“A break, I think,” Cas says, setting the nail gun down. “I’m hungry.”

Dean’s stomach rumbles in agreement and Cas laughs. Standing, he brushes grass from his jeans, then reaches out to help Dean off the ground. Together they make their way back towards the house, falling in step next to each other.

“Y’know, your room actually is pretty cold,” Dean says once they reach the back door. Cas opens it for him and Dean says, “You should probably do something about it.”

Cas doesn’t reply, just gives him a look, and Dean grins at him as he walks past.

///

Dean’s crawling into bed with a book— _Life, The Universe and Everything_ —careful not to disturb Meat Loaf when Cas knocks on his door. It creaks on its hinges when he opens it. He steps into the room in his t-shirt and plaid pyjama pants and Dean looks at him from over the top of his book.

“I think I left my laptop in here,” Cas says.

“You did.” Dean nods. “Got your hoodie and your mug, too.”

Cas looks at the bed, at Meat Loaf curled up next to Dean’s side. “And the cat, apparently.”

Dean grins and pets her head. “I think she likes me.”

“Surprising.”

“Ass,” Dean says. He nods to his closet and says, “Hoodie’s in the laundry. You got your book here, too.”

“I finished it. And technically it’s your book,” Cas says. He steps further into the room, closer to the bed, to where Meat Loaf is resting. He holds out his hand for her to sniff, then pets her. She stretches against Dean’s side and purrs. Cas looks up and asks, “How are you liking it?”

Dean frowns. “Liking what?”

Cas nods to his book. “ _The Universe and Everything._ ”

“Oh,” Dean says. “I just started it. It’s part of a series.”

“What’s it about?” Cas asks, sitting on the edge of the bed. Meat Loaf chirps and gets up, moves closer to him to headbutt his arm.

“Uh, space. Sort of. Here—” Dean pats the mattress next to him, moves the pillows so Cas can sit on the bed proper, then gets up to grab _Hitchhiker’s Guide_ off the bookshelf. He tosses it into Cas’s lap before sitting back down again. “There’s aliens and a depressed android and stuff. It’s pretty funny.”

Cas picks it up, flips it over as Meat Loaf crawls into his lap, still purring, and curls up on him. Cas looks at Dean and gestures with the book, asks, “Can I?”

Dean nods, picks his own up again. “Go for it.”

Cas opens the book, free hand dropping to pet the cat, and starts to read.

There’s a cool breeze coming in from the open window, bringing in the sound of frogs and crickets, teasing the curtains. Eventually Meat Loaf abandons them and Dean calls out, “You’re a traitor, Loafie.”

“She’s off to find a less embarrassing name,” Cas says.

“She’s gonna be looking a long time, then,” Dean says.

Cas rolls his eyes and goes back to his book.

Dean reads until his eyes start to feel heavy and his vision goes foggy around the edges. He rubs at them and yawns. His muscles ache from working out in the yard all day, and the mere idea of getting out of his warm, comfortable bed and walking down the stairs to check the locks, the sigils and the wards, is enough to make his knee throb.

He tosses his book on the nightstand and stretches. When he turns to ask Cas what he thinks of _Hitchhiker’s_ so far he finds him already asleep, book abandoned between them.

Dean grabs it and tosses it on top of his on the nightstand, then nudges Cas awake.

Cas grunts.

“Hey,” Dean says. “You’re on the blanket.”

Cas huffs and shifts, moves his legs. Dean tugs the blanket out from under him, lifts it up so he can slip under it, rearranges it so it’s on top of them. Cas pulls his side up around his shoulder and flops back down onto the mattress, making it bounce. He closes his eyes again with a soft sigh that makes something in Dean’s stomach flutter, warms something in his chest.

Dean inhales, slow, exhales, and tries to keep his nerves in check. Then he leans over and turns off the bedside lamp.

“Just don’t hog the covers,” he says as he settles back down.

“Mm,” Cas says, shifting so he's comfortable as he says, “Good night, Dean.”

Dean looks at the dark shape of him, the outline of him, dull blue in the moonlight. Feels the heat coming off him under the blankets, his breathing calm and steady as he falls asleep again.

Quietly, Dean says, “Night, Cas.”

///

There’s something walking on Dean’s leg.

He grunts and reaches out, feels something soft and fluffy against his hand. Meat Loaf chirps at him, walks closer to sniff at his face. Dean covers it with his arm and huffs, tries to move her off and gets claws to the stomach for his trouble.

“Ow—fuck. Cas, wake up,” he snaps. “Your damn cat is attacking me.”

Cas grumbles and shifts next to him. “Pity.”

“I hate you,” Dean says.

“Mhm,” Cas says, but he opens his eyes and pulls a hand out from under the covers, uses it to guide Meat Loaf off Dean’s chest. Insulted, she picks her way down to the bottom of the bed and sits with her back to them. Cas asks, “Better?”

“I guess,” Dean says. “Still hurts.”

Cas hums again, dips his hand back under the blanket. He nudges a little closer, the mattress creaking, and Dean feels Cas’s hand come to rest on his stomach, gentle, the heat of it soaking through the thin fabric of his t-shirt.

“I’m sorry I can’t heal you,” Cas says, quiet.

Dean swallows. “It’s just a cat scratch, Cas. Not, y’know—they sting a bit, but I’ve had a lot worse.”

“I know,” Cas says. He moves his hand lower, fingers brushing the hem of Dean’s t-shirt. “But still.”

“But nothing,” Dean says, shifting so their knees bump under the blanket.

It’s early yet, but already the sky beyond the window is grey, rain pelting against the roof, the room cold from having the window open all night. But it’s cozy under the covers, warm and comfortable.

Cas slides his hand along Dean’s hip, rests his palm flat on the small of his back, under his shirt, and it bunches up when he rubs slow, gentle circles against Dean’s skin. Dean touches his hand to Cas’s chest, feels the outline of his necklace against his palm, not meeting Cas’s eye.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

Dean moves his hand up his chest, finds where the leather string is tied at the back of Cas’s neck, traces it with his fingers. “Do you ever regret it?”

Cas stays quiet for a long moment. Dean holds his breath, his heart pounding.

“Dean,” Cas says. Dean swallows and Cas says, “Look at me.”

He looks up, meets Cas’s eye. He’s still ruffled from sleep, hair messy, eyes tired. But he smiles, soft and easy, and says, “Not for a second.”

Dean’s breath shakes out of him in relief. He nods, licks his lips, and moves his hand up Cas’s neck to cup his cheek.

Eyes closed, Dean leans in, brushes his lips against Cas’s, careful, hesitant. When Cas doesn’t pull away, pushes gently against his back instead to bring him closer, Dean kisses him properly, stomach swooping when Cas kisses back, sighs into it. He shifts closer still so he can feel Cas’s chest against his, his warmth, and kisses him again and again and again, his nerves melting away as Cas holds him.

Carefully he tests the waters, touches his tongue to Cas’s bottom lip and Cas hums, opens up and lets him in, meets him halfway, and Dean rolls onto his back, pulls Cas on top of him. Cas breaks the kiss to catch his breath, smiles, a little shaky and crooked, when Dean leans up to mouth at his jaw, slides his hands up his arms and over his shoulders. Heat pools in the bowl of his hips as Cas sinks his weight onto him, presses him against the mattress.

“I’ve wanted—” he says. “Dean, I’ve wanted—”

“I know.” Dean kisses him again, smoothes his hands along his back, under his t-shirt, and says, “I know, Cas.”

Cas touches his shoulder, his neck, holds his face as he nudges at his jaw. Dean tilts his head, a soft noise breaking out of his throat at the feel of stubble on his skin, Cas pressing an open-mouthed kiss to his neck, his breath hot. He’s starting to get hard against Dean’s thigh and it makes Dean’s skin burn, his fingers itch.

He moves his hand under the covers, goes to slip it between them, to tug at the strings of Cas’s pyjama bottoms when his phone lights up and starts vibrating on his nightstand, blasting the opening chords of “Smoke on the Water.”

Instantly, Cas freezes, lifts his head to look at it.

“God,” Dean groans. “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”

Cas sniffs, amused, and rolls off him, flops back onto his side of the mattress. With a loud sigh Dean grabs his phone and swipes the screen to answer the call.

Sitting up, he presses the phone to his ear and says, “Yeah?”

“Mornin’, kid,” Rose says on the other end.

“Rose, hey,” Dean says. “What’s up?”

“I got an appointment for a classic coming in. ‘72 Cutlass Supreme, needs engine work. Parts are here. She’s yours if you want it,” Rose says. Then, “Unless you’re busy?”

Dean looks at Cas and feels torn. On the one hand, they can always use the money. On the other, Cas is stretched out next to him, dark hair messy against the pillow, lips a little red from kissing.

“Busy?” Dean swallows. “Uh. I...um—”

“Dean.” Cas touches his knee and says, “Go. It’s okay.”

“Yeah,” Dean says. Then, quickly, he says, “No—no, I’m not busy.”

“Great,” Rose says, sounding amused. Dean’s cheeks heat. “See you in an hour, then.”

Dean hangs up and rubs at his face, grumbles.

“Well.” Cas pulls the blanket back up and rolls onto his side. “Have a good day at work.”

Dean huffs. “What are you gonna do?”

“Stay in bed where it’s warm, I imagine.” Cas snuggles down under the blanket and closes his eyes, the space next to him empty and inviting.

With a pained groan, Dean pulls himself out of bed and heads to the closet to grab his clothes.


	8. Chapter 8

Dean drops his duffel bag into the trunk and says, “You sure you don’t wanna come with?”

Cas looks at him from the doorway, the kitchen light forming a halo behind him, and taps his fingers against his mug, just once. “No, I’m sure. You haven’t seen her in a while.”

Dean fiddles with his keys, the keychain jingling, and tries to ignore the knots in his stomach. Nerves kept him awake for most of the night, staring at the ceiling and petting the cat for a distraction while Cas slept pressed against his side.

“I’m nervous,” Dean says. He wipes at his face and says, “God—that’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid,” Cas says.

“What if she doesn’t—”

“Then she’s wrong,” Cas says.

Dean swallows, squeezes his hand until his keys dig into his palm. He sniffs and nods, relaxes his shoulders. “Yeah. Okay.”

Cas smiles at him and Dean shuts the trunk. He rounds the car, gets his hand on the driver’s side door handle when he pauses and looks up at Cas, still watching him, drinking from his mug. Dean lets go of the handle and moves towards the stairs.

“See you later?” he asks.

“Of course,” Cas says.

Dean nods. “Good.”

He reaches up and gently tugs at the front of Cas’s t-shirt. Cas lets himself be pulled in, bends to meet him halfway, and Dean lets go of his shirt to cup his cheek as he kisses him, Cas’s mouth warm and sweet with coffee.

After a minute Cas leans back and Dean makes a noise, chases his lips, and Cas laughs.

“You’re gonna be late,” he says.

“One more,” Dean says, mouths at Cas’s jaw.

“Dean,” Cas says, but he gives in anyway.

///

Mary meets him just across the state line at a gas station. She leans against her car with a cup of coffee in hand, and when Dean pulls up she grabs a second off the roof, hands it over when he gets out.

“It tastes like sludge but it’s got a kick,” she says.

“Thanks, mom,” Dean says as he takes it. It’s been two years since she’s been back but the word still feels a little strange in his mouth. The smile she gives him every time he says it warms his insides.

“What are we looking at?” he asks.

Mary pulls out her phone and taps the screen, brings up a news article. Dean reads over it as he drinks his coffee—Mary’s right, it does taste like sludge. The headline reads: **_NO CURE IN SIGHT FOR INFECTED CHILDREN._** The article details the symptoms: children acting listless, like they’re in a trance, insatiable hunger, and demanding attention at all hours.

Dean hands the phone back. “Changelings?”

Mary sighs. “I was afraid you’d say that.”

///

For two days he paces their motel room, picking at crappy take-out food and downing cup after cup of cheap instant coffee. With each passing day the knot in his stomach grows; cases involving kids are always the worst.

Thankfully, they figure it out, and that night they find a basement apartment full of scared, hungry children and a confused property manager locked up in dog cages. Dean’s stomach turns at the sight.

Quickly, he gets the cages open, ushers the kids up the stairs when a fight breaks out in the hallway, the mother throwing Mary through a door. Dean jumps in to attack, barely manages to dodge a blow to the head with a metal shovel when a second one comes out of the shadows.

“There’s two of them!” Dean shouts, and gets knocked to the floor for his trouble.

He struggles to get free. The father growls at him, scratches at him and slams him back into the floor again, and Dean tastes blood. He manages to hit him in the groin with his bad knee, pain shooting up his leg, and throws him off just as Mary gets the flamethrower going.

Bloodied and bruised, Dean piles a bucketload of kids into the Impala and brings them back home to their parents. In tears, they hug him, cling to him in gratitude. Dean smiles, the cut on his lip stinging, and says, “No problem.”

///

Mary takes him out to dinner at an obnoxiously 50’s-themed all-night diner to celebrate.

It’s mostly empty, the only other customers are a couple of truck drivers drinking milkshakes at the bar. Dean heads to the restroom to wash up under a too-bright fluorescent light, tinny classic rock playing through the speakers overhead as he tries to get the blood off his jacket.

“You’re good with kids,” Mary says when he comes back. “You never thought about having your own?”

Dean plays with the paper off his straw. “I’unno. Once, maybe. I even tried the whole white picket fence thing. Spent a year with a woman who had a kid. But it—it didn’t work out.”

Mary nods and falls quiet, looks out the window. Dean’s stomach knots up again. He worked out what he was going to say, practiced it in his head over and over again. Now that she’s sitting in front of him, he can’t seem to force the words out.

His window of opportunity passes as their food arrives. Mary eagerly takes her plate from the waitress. She thanks her and grins at Dean, says, “God, I’m starving.”

///

“I need to tell you something.”

It’s gone past three in the morning and every muscle in Dean’s body feels sore, heavy with exhaustion. The motel bed is cold and hard under him, uncomfortable and uninviting, but the pain in his knee is worse.

“About the whole, y’know. Not having kids thing,” Dean says. Mary pauses and looks at him from where she’s standing next to her bed. Dean swallows, keeps his eyes on the floor. “About—about me and Cas.”

Mary sets her toiletry bag down and says, “Okay.”

“Um. Well. He’s—y’know. He’s my best friend, and he’s family.” Dean licks his lips, chances a look up at her. “But he’s—he’s kinda more than that.”

Mary watches him, quiet. Dean watches her back, watches her breathe, watches her process what he’s saying. He plays with a loose thread in the knee of his jeans, his stomach turning, heart pounding.

Finally, Mary asks, “Did your father know?”

“He never met Cas,” Dean says. “But—I’unno. Dad, he didn’t really approve of me meeting up with girls as it was, so. I was pretty careful about it with—with guys.”

Mary nods. She picks up her toiletry bag again and shoves it inside her duffle, hair hanging in her face. With another long exhale she tucks it behind her ear, looks at him again.

“Whatever you—” she pauses, tries again. “Whatever makes you happy, Dean. That’s what I want for you, and Sam. So if Castiel—Cas—if he’s it, if you’re happy, then I’m happy.”

Dean lets out the breath he was holding, his stomach unclenching for the first time in days. The tension drains out of him with relief and Mary smiles at him, eyes warm.

Carefully, Dean gets up to gather his things, shoves them into his bag and leaves it at the foot of the bed before finally passing out, face-down and on top of the covers.

He sleeps for a few hours before Mary wakes him up again. They grab a microwaved breakfast from the gas station across the street and eat it in the parking lot, Dean getting egg everywhere, the melted cheese sticking to his fingers.

“I’ve been tracking a wolf pack in Idaho if you think you’re up for more,” Mary says after.

Dean reaches down to rub at his knee. There’s an ache in his back, his neck and his shoulder, from where he got slammed into the floor then slept on a hard bed. He can still smell cheap detergent and moth balls on his clothes from the sheets.

“Thanks, but I think I’m gonna pass,” he says. “There’s stuff at home I gotta do.”

“Okay, well. If you change your mind, gimme a call,” Mary says. Then, “Tell Cas I said hi?”

“Yeah.” Dean opens his arms and she steps into them, lets herself be pulled in for a hug. She stands on her toes and squeezes him tight, holds him close. Quietly, Dean says, “Thank you.”

They pull apart and Mary nods, smiles at him, and watches as he gets into his car. He gets Baby’s engine purring and digs through his box of mixtapes, pulls out one that’s labelled “Songs for Long Drives to Nowhere” and shoves it into the tape deck.

///

The driveway is empty when Dean gets home, and there’s no note waiting for him on the whiteboard in the kitchen.

Frowning, Dean hangs his keys up, sets his bag down on the table, and pulls his phone out of his pocket. He texted Cas on his way home but there’s no reply. He sends another one, just in case, hears a buzz coming from the living room. Dean wanders in and finds Cas’s phone on the coffee table.

“Dammit, Cas,” he sighs. He picks it up and checks it, finds both his messages still on it, unread.

Ignoring the pit in his stomach, he sets it down on the table again and heads back into the kitchen to grab his bag and bring his weapons downstairs. He sets about starting dinner, tries to distract himself with chopping vegetables, listens to the radio as he cooks.

Just as he’s scooping stew out into a bowl, he hears the sound of tires on gravel, sees headlights shine in through the front windows, and a wave of relief washes over him. He grabs another bowl from the cupboard just as Cas comes in through the garage door, bags of soil in his arms.

“Hey,” Dean says, filling the second bowl. “Where’d you go? You left your phone.”

Cas sighs as he drops the bags on the floor next to the back door and says, “I thought so.”

Dean looks at him, sets the bowl down. “Everything okay?”

“I went into town, and I forgot—” Cas exhales. “Yes, everything’s fine.”

Dean hesitates. “You sure?”

“Yes,” Cas says again, his voice quiet, scratchy and tired. There’s bags under his eyes and he hasn’t shaved since Dean left. But his face lights up when he looks at the bowl. “I’m starving, though.”

Dean grins and hands it over. “Good timing, then.”

Cas sits down at the table with his bowl as Dean grabs two beers from the fridge. He sets one down in front of Cas and sits down opposite him, tucks into his dinner. They’re quiet as they eat, Dean talking a bit about the case.

“What about you, what’d you do?” he asks.

“Worked.” Cas drops his spoon in his empty bowl and pushes it away. “We’re almost done building the house. I was worried we wouldn’t finish with the weather. The family should be set to move in soon.”

“Good,” Dean says. “We gotta finish that coop.”

“I did a bit of work on it today,” Cas says. He nods towards the bags next to the door and says, “But then I remembered I needed soil.”

“Gotcha,” Dean says. He moves to gather up their dishes, to get out of his chair, when his knee twinges, almost gives out. With a wince he leans against the table for support, feels Cas looking at him. Before Cas can say anything, Dean says, “I’m fine. Just—uh. Changeling threw me around a bit.”

“I’m sorry,” Cas says.

“Why?” Dean asks. “Not your fault.”

Cas opens his mouth and Dean cuts him off.

“Hey, it’s fine,” he says. He gives Cas a smile and moves around the table to grab his bowl.

Cas touches his wrist. “Leave it, I’ll get it.”

“No, no. I got it.”

“Dean, you cooked. Let me do the dishes,” Cas says. “Besides, you must be exhausted.”

Dean’s back still hurts, his shoulders heavy. The drive obviously did his knee no favors. Cas runs his thumb along the underside of his wrist, and Dean sighs and gives in, sets his bowl down on the table.

///

Cas finds him reading in bed a little later. Dean glances up at him when he steps into the room, his hair a bit messed up from being outside, a smudge of soil on the bottom of his t-shirt.

“Get in a fight with the compost?” Dean asks.

Cas looks down at his shirt. “Oh. No, one of the bags burst.”

Dean laughs and Cas smiles at him. He reaches behind himself to shut the bedroom door. Dean pauses, opens his mouth to ask what he’s doing when Cas pulls his t-shirt off and tosses it into the dirty clothes. Dean closes his mouth.

Cas has smooth, soft-looking skin, tanned from working out in the sun. He’s got strong shoulders, strong arms, and a few stray freckles dotting his stomach and his chest that Dean can’t tear his eyes from. His grace glows faintly from where it hangs off its string in the middle of his chest.

“What are you reading?” Cas asks.

“Uh,” Dean says. Right, he was reading. Cas drops his hands to his belt, gets the clasp undone and pulls the leather from the loops of his jeans. Dean tries again. “It—uh. Same—same as before.”

Cas’s belt lands on the floor with a clunk. He pops open the button of his fly, pulls the zipper down with this fingers, and says, “I finished the first one.”

Dean says. “Oh.”

“I enjoyed it,” Cas says, hooking his thumbs in the waistband of his jeans and pulling them down along with his boxers. He steps out of them and kicks them away. Then he stands, completely naked, at the foot of Dean’s bed.

It’s the first time Dean’s seen him without his clothes on—sans bees, anyway. Cas waits, patient, lets Dean look him over, the Enochian scrawl tattooed on his ribs, the dip of his hips, the dark trail of hair that leads down.

Dean swallows and licks his lips.

“Gotta say.” He looks up, meets Cas’s eye. “That’s a good look for you, Cas.”

With that, Cas moves, the mattress dipping when he slides onto the bed. He takes Dean’s book out of his hand, folds the corner of the page down and sets it on the nightstand. He smells like fresh spring air, like soil and a hint of smoke, and it makes Dean’s head feel light, dizzy.

Cas mouths at his neck, leaves stubble burn as he settles his weight over him, between his knees. Gently, he pushes Dean down into the mattress, a hand in his hair, the other sliding up his t-shirt, fingers tickling up his side.

“I missed you,” he says, quiet.

“Yeah?” Dean asks. He tilts his head, moves to catch Cas’s mouth. Cas kisses him, mouth hot, and Dean moans, dips his tongue past his lips and lifts his hand to run his fingers through Cas’s hair and over his shoulder, down his back, his skin warm under his palm.

“Yeah,” Cas says, and keeps kissing him, stops only to pull Dean’s shirt off and toss it away. He moves back to his neck, sucks a mark under his jaw, and something hot and liquid starts to trickle down Dean’s spine, something that makes his hips twitch, makes his skin heat.

He feels Cas push his hand down between them to pull at the elastic band of his pyjama pants and Dean lifts his hips, helps get them off. He chases Cas’s mouth until it’s on his again, pulls him back down so they’re pressed together.

Cas shifts, lines them up and rolls his hips, slow, steady, and Dean grinds against him, drags his hands down Cas’s back to cup his ass. He squeezes once before he gets his hand between them, wraps it around Cas’s cock.

Cas breaks away with a gasp and says, “ _Dean_.”

Dean nudges at his cheek and says, “I missed you too, y’know.”

Cas lets out a soft, shaky noise as Dean pumps him, hot and heavy, straining in his palm. Cas rolls his hips, fucks into Dean’s fist and tries to press a kiss to his mouth but misses the mark and gives up, buries his face into the groove of his neck instead.

“That’s it.” Dean squeezes him and Cas’s breath catches. “That’s it, Cas.”

Above him, Cas tenses, his rhythm shot to hell, and comes with a low groan that melts deep into Dean’s bones. He kisses the bolt of Cas’s jaw, his ear, works him through it, tilts his hips up to ride against Cas’s stomach, a bit desperate, but it’s not enough. Cas nuzzles against his neck, moves to catch his lips and Dean gets his hand around himself, jacks himself hard and quick, starts to pant against Cas’s mouth.

Cas notices, pulls back a little to look down. “Dean—”

“Yeah,” Dean breathes, face flushed and burning. “Yeah, just—”

Cas nudges his hand away, takes over, and Dean lasts all of five seconds before his back arches and he breaks apart, spills into Cas’s fist with a broken moan. He rides out the aftershocks, Cas murmuring encouragement, kissing his face until Dean sinks against the mattress, boneless.

“God,” he says once they’ve caught their breath. “Remind me again why the hell we didn’t do this sooner?”

“The world tried to end a few times, and—” Cas gestures vaguely with his hand. “Etcetera.”

“Yeah,” Dean says. “I guess.”

Cas drops his hand on his chest, traces the lines of his tattoo with the tips of his fingers, light and ticklish.

“It was… difficult, for me,” he says. “For most of my existence I believed emotions lead to disobedience.”

“Well, I mean, you’re not wrong,” Dean says. “You did rebel against Heaven.”

Cas huffs out a laugh. Dean leans in, reaches up to tilt Cas’s chin closer and kisses him. Cas sighs into it, kisses him back, slow and lazy, his hand coming to rest over Dean’s, thumb brushing over his knuckles. After a minute Dean pulls back to look at him.

“Thanks,” he says. “For—y’know. Being patient with me. I know it’s not easy.”

“Maybe not all the time,” he agrees. Then he smiles and says, “But it’s worth it.”

///

Over the next few days, the chicken coop finally starts to resemble something closer to a building rather than a pile of wood.

Dean holes himself up in the barn one afternoon, alone, his radio blaring and beer sweating on the workbench as he cuts pieces of wood for the nesting boxes, gets sawdust everywhere.

They take turns running errands some days, and Cas works others, the habitat crew eager to get the family waiting patiently at a shelter two towns over into their new house. When they're both home they work on the coop together.

Dean sands the edges of one of the planks, drains the rest of his beer, wipes his mouth before he inspects the plank for rough spots. Satisfied, he sets the plank aside and goes to grab another one when his phone vibrates along the desk.

He answers it without checking the number. “Yeah?”

“Dean,” Cas says. “I—I need help.”

Instantly, Dean’s insides freeze. He gets out of his chair, stomach tight, and asks, “Where are you?”


	9. Chapter 9

Cas is sitting on the curb outside the vet’s office when Dean pulls up, cigarette between his fingers and cat cage at his side, Meat Loaf clawing impatiently at the bars. She meows loudly as Dean approaches and Cas drops the cigarette as he stands, crushes it with the toe of his shoe, then bends to pick up the cage.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

Dean shakes his head, gives Cas’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Don’t worry about it.”

“It was stupid of me,” Cas says.

“Cas,” Dean says. “Seriously—it’s fine. I’ve done it a billion times.”

Cas sighs and falls into step beside him. They make their way across the parking lot to Cas’s truck, set a little away from the other cars so he didn’t have to worry about his terrible parking. He stands awkwardly off to the side as Dean digs the spare keys out of his pocket and gets the driver’s side door open. Dean leans in, elbow on the seat, and pulls Cas’s keys from the ignition, turns around and drops them in his hands.

“There,” he says.

Cas swallows and closes his fist around them, hard enough that his knuckles go white.

“I’m sorry,” he says again. “I—thank you.”

Dean waves it off, leans against the side of Cas’s truck. “Dude, I’ve locked my keys in the trunk more times than I can count. Had to pick it open. No way in hell I was calling a locksmith.”

Cas smiles weakly and doesn’t look at him. Dean frowns.

“Hey.” He pushes himself away from the truck and into Cas’s space, touches his shoulder again, bends to catch his eye. Cas looks at him and Dean says, “It’s fine, Cas.”

“Okay,” Cas says.

There’s no one else out here, so Dean slides his hand up Cas’s neck and leans in to kiss him. Cas kisses back, reaches up to wrap his free hand around his wrist, the metal of his keys cool against his skin.

Dean pulls back and asks, “See you at home?”

Cas nods. Voice quiet, he says, “Of course.”

///

Dean’s on the phone with Krissy when Cas gets in, only a few minutes after him. Krissy lists off details about the case they’re working as Dean looks through files on his laptop.

He nods to Cas in greeting. Into the phone, he says, “Yeah, that’s a dragon.”

“A _dragon_?” Krissy asks. “Great. You wouldn’t happen to have the number for Middle Earth, would you?”

Cas sets Meat Loaf’s cage on the floor and opens the gate for her. Dean watches her scurry away, her ears back and tail low. Cas picks the cage up again and shuffles out of the kitchen without a word, feet heavy on the stairs.

“Dean?” Krissy asks.

“Huh?” Dean says. “Oh—uh. You need a sword forged in dragon’s blood.”

“Where the hell am I supposed to get that?”

Dean looks down the hallway, towards the staircase.

“We got one,” he says. “It’s in a storage unit. You got a pen?”

He gives Krissy the information and wishes her good luck before he ends the call and heads upstairs, the floor creaking. He peeks into his bedroom, finds it empty, so he wanders down the hall to where Cas’s bedroom door hangs open a crack.

Dean pushes it open, steps into the room and says, “Hey.”

Cas is sitting at his desk with his journal open and a pile of postcards scattered in front of him. He doesn’t look up when he says, “Hi.”

Dean leans against the doorway. There’s no abandoned mug on the nightstand for once, and most of the cacti in the windowsill are gone, relocated to Dean’s room. He tries to push down the weird feeling in his gut, one he can’t place, something heavy and unpleasant.

“Look—” he tries. He pauses, licks his lips, tries again. “Are you okay?”

Cas picks up a postcard and reads it. “I’m fine.”

“Yeah, okay.” Dean looks down at his hands, picks at his thumbnail. “But—uh. You seem kinda, I’unno. Off.”

Cas lifts his head and sets the postcard down.

“I’m—I just wanna make sure, is all,” Dean says.

Finally, Cas looks at him, his expression blank. “I’m fine.”

Dean swallows, nods. “Okay, yeah. Good.”

Cas’s mouth turns up, gives him a small smile that doesn’t reach his eyes before he turns back to his desk and picks up another postcard.

“I was gonna make pizza,” Dean says. “You wanna help?”

“No,” Cas says. Then, quieter, he adds, “Thank you.”

“Okay,” Dean says. He pushes away from the door and gives Cas one last look before he turns and leaves, the thing in his stomach growing bigger as he walks down the hallway.

///

They eat together on the porch, a cool wind blowing in from the north, the threat of a storm in the distance. Cas rolls a joint after, quiet, and Dean watches, thumbs at the label of his beer as Cas’s fingers work the paper.

Cas flicks his lighter and leans back in his chair. Dean drains the last of his beer, sets the bottle down on the side table next to their empty plates and, with a wince, gets out of his seat, moves to stand between Cas’s bare feet.

Exhaling, Cas looks up at him. He holds out the joint and Dean takes it, inhales deep, the hot, sweet taste of smoke filling his mouth. He cups Cas’s face, stubble rough against his palm, thumb rubbing against his cheek, and bends down, breathes smoke into Cas’s mouth before brushing his bottom lip with his own. He slides his hands down to Cas’s thighs, uses them as support to lower himself between his legs.

The porch is hard under his knees, the wood cool and unforgiving. His bad knee throbs, aching from the dampness in the air, but he ignores it, runs his hands along the inseam of Cas’s jeans as he kisses him, Cas’s lips sticky from the smoke.

Cas stubs out his joint on his empty plate and kisses back, breath hitching as Dean grinds the heel of his palm against the front of his jeans. Dean pops open his fly and pulls him out, Cas sighing when he wraps his hand around him and gives him a few slow pumps to get him hard.

He nudges Cas’s legs further apart with his shoulders, settles between them, and leans in to mouth at the head of his cock, teasing him with his tongue before he pulls him in, licks at the underside, tastes skin and soap. Cas makes a quiet noise above him and Dean feels fingers slide up the back of his neck, thumb tracing the outline of his ear. Dean moans, kneads Cas’s thigh with one hand, the other holding the base of him as he bobs his head and sucks at him, wet and sloppy and quick.

After a minute, Cas moves his hand to Dean’s cheek, gently stops his movements and says, “Dean.”

Dean stills and glances up at him, catches his eye. Cas opens his mouth to say something, then doesn’t, and Dean pulls off with a wet pop, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Yeah?”

“I’m—” Cas hesitates. Inhales. Tries again. “I’m not really in the mood.”

Dean’s stomach tightens and his face burns, stings with embarrassment.

“Right.” He leans back, his hands sliding off Cas’s thighs. “Coulda said that before I put your dick in my mouth.”

“I thought I was.” Cas says. “I’m sorry.”

Dean uses the arm of the chair to help heave himself off the ground. He grabs their dishes and says, “You don’t have to apologize.”

Cas looks at him. “You’re upset.”

“No, it’s not—” Dean stops and looks away, towards the grey clouds coming in over the wheat fields. “I’m not upset, Cas.”

“Dean.”

“Look, just—” Dean shakes his head. “Forget it.”

“No.” Cas leans forward to look at him better. “Dean, tell me what’s wrong.”

Finally, Dean snaps. “Why don’t you tell me?”

Cas frowns. “What?”

“You’ve been acting weird all day, man,” Dean says. “If I did something—”

“You didn’t.”

“Then what the hell is it?” Dean asks.

“Nothing.” Cas says, his voice stiff. “I said I’m fine.”

Dean laughs humorlessly. “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, Cas.”

Cas just looks at him. Finally, he says, “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me,” Dean says.

“I just—” Cas looks away. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Dean grits his teeth, nods. Without another word, he heads for the door.

Cas sighs. “Where are you going?”

Dean grabs the door handle and says, “Out.”

“So should I call a cab now, or is there a particular ditch you plan on spending the night in?” Cas asks.

Dean stares at him. Cas stares back, expression hard, challenging. Dean breaks first. He sets the dishes down on the arm of Cas’s chair and says, “You can do your own damn dishes for once.”

He lets the door slam closed behind him when he leaves.

///

The woman at the front desk gets him to sign his name on a clipboard and leave his phone number. He hands it back, spots her nametag as she takes the clipboard from him—Maggie.

Dean frowns as she reads over his file, her dark hair hanging loose from her ponytail, and tries to figure out why the name seems so familiar when she asks, “You’re Sam’s brother, aren’t you?”

Dean blinks. “Uh—yeah?”

“He talks about you a lot,” she says with a friendly smile and it clicks. Christ, Sam has a type. Maggie gets out of her chair, pulls a keychain from her pocket, and gestures for him to follow her down the hall.

She leads him through a door with a printed sign posted on it that says, in big bold letters: **PLEASE ASK OUR STAFF FOR ASSISTANCE :-)** and immediately Dean is assaulted with a chorus of deafening barks. Maggie grabs a leash off a coat rack and hands it to Dean, then brings him to the far end of the kennel and stops in front of a cage in the corner, a familiar face looking up at them.

Cutter barks at him in greeting. Dean grins and bends down, puts his hand against the cage door and says, “Hey, buddy. Wanna go for a walk?”

///

It’s raining hard when he leaves the shelter. He stops to fill up at a gas station just outside of town, spots a rack of postcards in the corner as the cashier rings him in. The rack squeaks when he turns it. He thumbs through them, plucks out one with a wheat field on it, turns it over.

“Anything else?” the cashier asks.

“Uh.” Dean drops the postcard on the counter and pulls out his wallet. “Yeah—pack of Marlboro Reds.”

He sits in the parking lot after, Baby’s engine running and windows down as he smokes, Blind Faith playing through the speakers. The sun’s starting to set behind the clouds, the street lights flickering into life.

Over the sound of rain hitting the roof, Steve Winwood sings, “ _Somebody must change, you are the reason I’ve been waiting so long_ —” and Dean stabs the eject button.

He sighs and rubs at his face, takes a drag from his cigarette before he stubs it out in an empty coffee cup. Carefully, he pulls the tape out of the deck and flips it over, traces his thumb over the label.

After a minute, he pulls a pen out of his pocket. He scratches a few words off the label and writes new ones over top of it so it reads: “Songs for Long Drives ~~to Nowhere~~ Back Home.”

///

It’s dark when he gets in, only the light above the stove left on. Cas put their dishes by the sink, washed and left in the rack to dry, the counters clean, the leftovers put away. Dean drops his keys onto their hook and peels his jacket off, hangs it up in the closet.

The lights are off upstairs, too. He blindly navigates his way to his bedroom, hand on the wall until he finds his door. He peels off his t-shirt and his jeans, covered in dog slobber that he didn’t bother washing off, tosses them into his dirty laundry.

When he finally flicks on the light he finds his bed empty, untouched since he made it this morning, and his stomach sinks.

///

The housing project is on the other side of town, nestled in a quiet suburb mostly made up of soccer moms and retired grandparents. The houses are the sort that come in kits and, for the most part, all look the same. But the area has a playground, a patch of grass and trees the locals call a park, and a set speed limit of 25 miles.

Dean finds the house easy enough—it’s the only one with a shitload of cars parked along the sidewalk out front and a bunch of workers in matching shirts sitting on the lawn. He parks on the opposite side of the street and kills the engine, doesn’t bother locking the door. A few of the workers eye Baby with interest as he makes his way up to the house.

A short man in his sixties with a Santa Claus beard and a nametag that says “Jerry” points him to the back of the house, and Dean wanders through the wooden gate, tries to keep his nerves in check. There’s a few stragglers in the backyard working on the grass, and he spots Cas in the corner with his back turned. A few workers glance up as Dean crosses the yard and comes to stop next to a pile of sod, his shadow falling across Cas’s back.

Cas stops what he’s doing and turns to look, confused. When he sees Dean his face falls carefully blank, his eyes dropping to Dean’s hands, to the paper bag and the cardboard cup holder.

“Hey,” Dean says.

Cas looks away again, goes back to setting the sod. “What are you doing here?”

“You forgot your lunch,” Dean says. “And—I got coffee.”

“Thank you,” Cas says, stiff. “Set it by the wheelbarrow. I’ll get to it later.”

“You get a break, right?” Dean asks. “I, uh. I was kinda hoping we could—that we could talk?”

Cas stops working and stands up straight, scratches the back of his neck then finally looks at Dean. There’s bags under his eyes, more prominent than usual, and his hair at the back of his neck curls with sweat, his face a bit red from exertion, from working out in the heat all morning.

Dean waits, holds his breath, until Cas sighs and leans his rake against the fence.

“All right,” he says.

///

Cas stops to let Jerry know he’s taking his break, then leads Dean across the street and around the block to the park. He pulls at his t-shirt collar and drinks from a bottle of water—one provided by the building company, the name of the housing program printed on the side.

They find a park bench under a tree and plunk down on opposite sides, the bench squeaking under them. Dean slides Cas his coffee and his lunch bag, opens his own and pulls out a ham sandwich and a bag of chips. The sun burns hot against his back, a warm breeze teasing the leaves above them.

After a few minutes of eating in uncomfortable silence, Dean says, “You look tired.”

Cas pops a chip into his mouth and doesn’t look at him. “I am tired.”

“Yeah,” Dean says. He wipes at his face, looks around the park. There’s a young mother with two kids nearby playing on a swing set, but other than that the place is empty. Dean inhales, the fresh air clearing his head a little, and exhales, slow.

“Look, Cas,” he says, playing with the cardboard sleeve of his coffee cup. “About yesterday—”

“It’s fine,” Cas says.

“No, it’s not,” Dean says. “I wasn’t—I’m not upset about…y’know. I just—”

“Is it really appropriate to be discussing this here?”

Dean leans back in his seat, looks at him for a second, tries to swallow down the anger bubbling up from his stomach. He rubs at his eye, his face again, and says, “Okay, look. I get it. You don’t wanna talk about whatever bug crawled up your ass—”

“Considering this is usually how these conversations go—”

“I can’t understand what’s going on if you don’t tell me, Cas,” Dean says. “You always do this—you keep shit to yourself and act like you have to go it alone all the time.”

Cas huffs. “That sounds awfully familiar, doesn’t it?”

Dean grits his teeth. “I just want to help.”

Finally, Cas looks at him. “You can’t.”

“You’re not even letting me try!”

“What’s the point, Dean?” Cas snaps. “You’re just going to get disappointed when you can’t fix me and then blame yourself when it’s not your problem to fix.”

Dean frowns at him. “You don’t—what are you talking about, Cas?”

Cas exhales, a little shaky, and looks away again. He rubs his chin, his stubble scratching, and Dean waits for an answer, for Cas to say something. Cas stops, lets his hand drop, then starts packing up his lunch instead, grabs his coffee.

“I should get back to work,” he says.

“Cas, hold on—”

Cas climbs off the bench and moves to leave, to head back. He pauses, closes his eyes and breathes slowly a moment before he turns and looks down at Dean, face blank again, emotionless.

“We’ll talk later,” he says, and he walks away before Dean can reply.

///

Dean cleans while he waits. Dusts and scrubs the floors, the surfaces, changes his sheets, does a load of laundry. He vacuums the couch and spends ten minutes trying to get Meat Loaf out of hiding so he can brush her on the back porch, allergies be damned. By the time he’s done the house smells like floor cleaner and fresh air, feels cool from having the windows open all afternoon.

At six Cas’s truck pulls into the driveway just as Dean’s shoving garlic bread into the oven. He looks up when Cas enters through the garage door, looking sun-kissed and exhausted, and meets his eye. Neither of them say anything, and Cas heads upstairs to shower.

Dean’s got Cas’s routine down pretty well by now, can get dinner ready by the time he’s done cleaning up. The bread finishes and Dean pulls it out, sets the table, grabs a beer out of the fridge and sits down, starts to eat, tries to ignore the knots in his stomach.

When ten minutes have passed and Cas still hasn’t come down, Dean drains the rest of his beer and wanders upstairs, past his bedroom and to the end of the hall. He stops in front of Cas’s door.

“Dude, what are you doing?” he asks. “Dinner’s getting cold.”

Cas pauses, turns around to look at him, his hands full of clean clothes. His old dufflebag sits on the edge of the bed, the zipper gaping open, more clothes sticking out of it.

Dean looks up at Cas. Cas swallows and looks down. Dean huffs and walks out of the room.

“Dean—” Cas calls after him. “Wait.”

He catches up to him in the hallway, touches his elbow. Dean turns around, steps away, out of his reach.

“Don’t. Just—” Dean shakes his head. Something in his chest aches, makes him bark out a pained laugh. “I knew this was coming. I fucking knew it. Nothing changes.”

“It’s just for a few days,” Cas says, quiet. “I just need some space.”

“Right. You need space,” Dean says. “From me.”

“Dean, no.” Cas sighs. “It’s not like that.”

“Then what, huh?” Dean snaps. “What did I do wrong? Are you—do you not want to do this anymore, are you regretting it—what the hell is it?”

Cas’s jaw clenches and he refuses to look at him. “Dean—”

“Do you love me?”

Cas freezes, expression dark, and everything goes still. Dean opens and closes his mouth to say something else—anything else—to take it back, cover it up, but it’s too late.

“Don’t ask me that,” Cas says.

“I can’t keep doing this, Cas.” Dean looks away, takes another step back, his breath shaking out of him. “I can’t wait around for you to decide you don’t wanna be here anymore. So if you wanna leave, then fine. Just leave.”

Cas looks at him for a long moment, mouth tight. Then he nods and brushes past Dean, heads back to his bedroom to finish packing his bag.


	10. Chapter 10

Cas left when he became human again.

For three weeks, Dean jumped at the sound of a phone ringing, looked up whenever the rare car or truck or tractor passed by their house, tires grinding on gravel.

For three weeks, he threw himself into working on the house, cleaning out the basement, fixing loose floorboards, cleaning mold off the windows, painting the walls. Whatever would distract him from the hollow feeling he’d get in his chest whenever he walked past the bedroom at the end of the hall and found it was still empty.

Sam told him, “It’s an adjustment period.”

Sam told him, “He just needs some time.”

For three weeks, Dean typed messages on his phone. Sometimes it was _just checking in_ and _call if there’s a problem_. Other times, on nights when he couldn’t sleep, it was _Was it something I said?_ and _Please just let me know you’re okay._

For three weeks, Dean sent message after message, and he never once got a reply back.

///

Dean eats dinner on the porch by himself. He drinks beer and smokes, and stares at the back of the wheat field postcard he picked up from the gas station days ago.

He taps his pen against it, nibbles on his bottom lip. He’s never been good with words. Never really learned how to use them. In the end, it probably won’t matter, but Dean uncaps his pen and writes something down anyway.

He brings his dishes inside, cleans up, and tapes the postcard to the whiteboard.

///

Six days after Cas leaves, Rose calls him with another job. A family from out of town’s minivan died a few miles down the road and a tow truck dropped it off at her garage.

Dean gets under the hood, figures out it’s their starter that’s shot to hell—modern technology is good for some things, bad for a lot more—and manages to find a spare they can use until they get back home. Working eases his mind a little, the smell of oil and rubber, the sun warm on his back and a cold beer resting on the work table calming his nerves.

He washes his hands in the garage sink when he’s finished, gets the grease out from under his fingernails. When he turns around he finds Rose leaning against the garage door, arms crossed, watching.

“What’s goin’ on with you?” she asks.

Dean blinks. “What?”

“You’re normally in here singing like you’ve got a comeback album topping the charts,” Rose says. “You been real quiet all afternoon.”

Dean dries his hands on a rag, tosses it back to the sink. “I’m fine.”

“Uh-huh.”

Dean sighs, his shoulders drooping. Rose studies him, glint in her eye.

“Me and Cas had a big fight,” Dean says. “He left six days ago and—and I dunno if he’s gonna come back.”

Rose straightens up, her arms dropping to her sides, and looks him over. Then, after a minute, she walks into the office. Dean hears her rustling around in there, and when she comes back out, she’s got a bottle and two glasses.

Dean snorts. “Really?”

She pours him a shot of whiskey and hands it over. “I got back into drag a few years after Sharon and I started living together. Didn’t tell her for months. Scared shitless she was gonna leave.”

Dean stares at her for a moment. She gestures to his glass and he drinks wordlessly.

“But she did,” Rose says. “She left. Went back home to visit family in China. She was gone for weeks, and the whole time I kept thinking, if only I had said something different or done something different, been honest from the get-go. Then maybe this wouldn’t have happened.”

Rose drinks from her own glass, thinks on it for a minute.

“Thing is, she needed to leave,” she says. “Wouldn’t have mattered what I said or did, she needed to go, and I needed to let her.”

“She came back, though,” Dean says.

Rose nods. “She did, and I’m grateful every day for that.”

Dean looks down at his glass, moves it so the whiskey rolls around on the bottom.

“I’ve done some shit. Some you wouldn’t believe. I’ve—the things I’ve seen,” he says. “But this? Trying to have a—a functioning relationship with someone? This is the scariest thing I’ve ever fucking done.”

Rose laughs. She taps their glasses together and says, “Boy, don’t I know it.”

///

Dean wakes when something lands on his face.

Eyes still closed, he brushes his nose with his hand, shoves his face into his pillow and tries to go back to sleep when he feels it again, brushing his ear. He grunts and tries to bat it away.

“Loaf, I swear to god—”

It happens again, on the back of his head this time, and Dean huffs and rolls over, opens his eyes to find Cas staring down at him. Dean’s stomach flips and he opens his mouth, closes it again when he notices the pile of postcards in Cas’s hands, a few more scattered on the bed.

He frowns. “Did you just throw those at me?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Dean says. “Uh—why?”

Cas picks another one out from the pile and tosses it down into Dean’s lap. “Because I want you to read them.”

Dean grabs the one in his lap. It’s one of those cheap ugly ones with a photo of a city printed in the middle of big, bold letters, this one saying, “ **Greetings from OHIO!** ” Dean flips it over, finds Cas’s messy writing near the bottom of the card and reads it: _I’ve slept in the back of the Impala every night this week._ There’s a date under it—two weeks after they moved in.

Dean sets it down and looks up at Cas. “You slept in the Impala?”

Cas’s mouth twitches in the corner. “Only when you weren’t already in there.”

Dean feels his cheeks heat. “Touché.”

Cas hands him another one from the pile. In the middle of the card, it says: _I find most of your music irritating unless you’re singing along to it._

Dean huffs, and Cas hands him another that says: _I just slept with someone because she had freckles and your eyes_ at the top. On the bottom, in smaller writing, it says: _Her boyfriend didn’t, but I slept with him, too._

The next one Cas hands him only has five words on it: _I watched you rake leaves._

Dean sets the postcard down and asks, “What is this, Cas?”

“Confessions,” Cas says. “Reminders. In case I—in case I forget.”

Dean swallows, doesn’t say anything. Cas sits down next to him on the mattress, close enough that their shoulders touch, and picks another postcard out from the pile—one from the bottom with a wheat field on the front—and flips it over. On the back, in thick black marker in Dean’s handwriting, it says: **_You’re not broken._**

Cas studies it for a long moment before he says, “The human mind can’t retain the same information an angel’s can.”

Dean keeps his eyes on Cas’s hands, watches them tuck the postcard back into the pile and set them aside before he slips his hands between his knees, fingers clasped.

“I’m not just forgetting things because I’m getting older,” Cas says. “I’m forgetting things because I’m an angel without its grace living in a human body.”

After a long moment, Dean asks, “How bad does it get?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Cas breathe, slow and steady. “I imagine eventually I’ll forget most of my angelic memories, but—probably no worse than what the average human forgets as they get older.”

Dean nods. He looks at him and says, “I’m sorry, Cas.”

“I know forgetting things and getting older is just—it’s something humans do, but—” Cas shakes his head.

“No, I—I mean, you’re not just human,” Dean says. “Feeling like a part of you is getting stripped away can be pretty scary.”

Cas smiles, huffs out a quiet laugh.

“What?” Dean asks.

“Nothing,” Cas says. “Just—after all these years, your overwhelming sense of compassion still surprises me sometimes.”

Something in Dean’s chest flutters.

“Look, Cas. I never thought I’d get old either. I always thought I’d die bloody.” He reaches out and touches the sore spot on his knee. “Now I think I’m actually starting to get arthritis.”

Cas looks down at his knee and says, “Unfortunately, I think you might be right.”

///

After three days of hard labor, of sweat and grumbling from Cas and some blood and tears from Dean after he cuts his hand on the table saw, they finally finish the chicken coop, and Dean crosses another item off his list.

**_PROJECTS_ **

  * ~~Planter boxes~~
  * ~~~~Bookshelves~~~~
~~
  * ~~Chicken coop~~
~~ 


~~~~

Dean buys a few hens and an hour’s worth of advice from a farmer down the road, who helps him load the cage up in the back of Cas’s truck. Dean drives home and brings the hens to the coop, opens their cage door and says, “Welcome home, ladies.”

Cas gets home a bit later than usual from work that evening, warm from the sun and looking exhausted, but content. He spots the chickens in the backyard and presses a kiss to the corner of Dean’s mouth, his hand lingering on his hip.

“Thank you,” he says.

“Sure thing, Cas,” Dean says. Then, he says, “Go shower, man. You stink.”

///

That night, Dean laughs and says, “You do too have grey hair.”

The room’s hot despite the open window, despite the night breeze blowing in, and Dean’s knee is already starting to hurt. But Cas’s hands are gentle on his hips, his cock hard and slick where it nudges up against Dean’s ass, and his hair already curling at his temples from the humidity.

“What?” he asks.

Dean touches the strands of grey, brushes his thumb over Cas’s ear. “Right here.”

“Supposedly that happens when you get older,” Cas says.

“Huh,” Dean says. He reaches behind himself to hold Cas steady. “Guess we’ll be creaky old cranks together.”

Cas’s eyes flutter when Dean guides him inside. “I look forward to it.”

Dean grins at him, slides his hands up to rest on Cas’s shoulders as he sinks down, Cas filling him up, hot and thick, and rolls his hips. He takes it slow, lazy, his skin burning as Cas watches him. He’s quiet under him except for his breathing, the soft hitch of his breath when Dean traces the string of his necklace, touches the vial of grace.

Cas slides his hand over Dean’s, holds it there and says, “I’m not going anywhere, Dean.”

Dean swallows and closes his eyes, nods, lets out a soft noise as he rides harder, wincing when his knee twinges. Carefully, Cas rolls them over, lays Dean onto his back to take the weight off, and Dean sighs in relief. Cas trails kisses up his neck as he guides himself back inside, hand sliding up Dean’s arm, his wrist, tickling his palm before he links their fingers together.

“That better?” Cas asks.

“Would be better if you moved.”

Cas laughs, quiet, and rocks his hips, picks up an easy rhythm, his breath hot against Dean’s neck. Dean arches against him, pushes back the best he can, meets him halfway.

Leaning up to kiss him, Dean says, “C’mon, Cas. Harder—fuck me.”

Cas exhales, sharp, grinds his hips and says, “Like that?”

“Yeah.” Dean pulls him in closer with his legs, gets him off-balance. Cas grunts and slams into him and Dean says, “ _Fuck_ , yeah. Just like that.”

He moves his free hand towards Cas’s but Cas beats him to it. He takes Dean’s hand in his and holds both of them above his head, against his pillow, and drives into him hard, the headboard rattling against the wall. Cas nudges his chin, mouths at his throat, the heat building, threatening to break, and Dean moans, says, “Fuck— _fuck_ , Cas—m’gonna come.”

Cas groans against his neck and Dean cracks, falls apart under him with a whimper, spills out in the space between them. Cas lets go of his hands, Dean immediately reaching for him, and fucks him through it, in and in and in, breath hot on Dean’s neck and the bed creaking under them until he tenses and comes with a whine, trembles under Dean’s hands.

Cas kisses him after, slow, his fingers drawing patterns on Dean’s arm, over his side as their breathing slows, still hot and stuffy even stretched naked on top of the covers.

Dean’s drifting off when he feels Cas shift beside him, the heat of his hands suddenly gone from his skin. Dean opens his eyes, rubs at them, watches Cas sit up and lift his hands to his neck, to the leather string.

“What’re you doing?” he asks.

With a bit of blind fiddling, Cas manages to get the string untied. He pulls it off his neck and ties it again so the vial won’t fall off, then holds it out.

Dean stares at it. “Cas—”

“Dean.” Cas grabs his hand, gently pries his fingers open, and places the necklace in his palm. Then he closes Dean’s hand again, lifts it to his mouth, and presses a kiss against his knuckles.

“I—I can’t—” Dean says. “Cas—I can’t take this.”

“You’re not taking it,” Cas says. “I’m giving it to you.”

Dean swallows, blinks at him. With a warm smile, Cas leans in and presses a kiss to his lips, murmurs, “Good night, Dean” against them. Then he lies down again and closes his eyes with a sigh, snakes his arm around Dean’s middle.

He falls asleep after a few minutes, and Dean opens his hand, looks at the vial. Cas’s grace swirls inside the glass, a faint fog glowing blue against his palm.

///

Sam’s waiting for him by the door when he pulls up.

There’s a tingle in his hands, a flutter in his stomach that’s a mix of nerves and excitement. Sam smiles as he approaches, one hand in his pocket, the other on the door handle.

“You sure about this?” he asks.

“As long as you promise not to say ‘I told you so’, then yeah,” Dean says.

Sam laughs and opens the door for him. “No promises.”

He follows Dean up to the counter. Maggie smiles up at him from the computer and taps the mouse, types something on the keys, the printer whirring into life and spitting out pages that she grabs and staples together. She circles a few spots for him and Dean signs with his real name, recaps the pen and fiddles with his keys in his pocket.

“All right,” Maggie says, putting the file away. She grins at him and says, “Gimme a second.”

Sam claps him on the shoulder and beams at him.

“Don’t—” Dean points at him. “Don’t you dare.”

“I told you so,” Sam says.

“God, I hate you so much,” Dean says.

From behind the door he hears a loud bark, the scrape of nails on tile floor, Maggie murmuring quietly. The door handle twists and Cutter appears, tongue out and tail wagging, leash dragging behind him.

“Sorry, he got loose,” Maggie says.

“That’s okay.” Dean bends down when Cutter walks up to him, lets him lick his chin and slobber on his jacket. Dean pats his side and, with a grin, says, “Hey, buddy. You ready to go home?”

///

“Wow,” Sam says as he follows him to the car, his hands in his pockets. “Cats, chickens, now a dog. You got a proper farm going on.”

“Yeah, well.” Dean opens the back door and shoves a bag of kibble on the seat with a grunt, mutters about the food alone weighing a ton, let alone the dog, probably threw his back out, before he says, “I’m drawing the line at pigs. I hate those fuckers.”

Sam gives him a look. “Dude, eighty percent of your diet is pig.”

“They’re evil, Sam,” Dean says. “Doesn’t mean they’re not delicious.”

Sam rolls his eyes. “Whatever.”

Cutter sniffs at Baby’s wheels as Dean pulls out his cigarettes and lights one, exhales smoke out of the side of his mouth. Sam shakes his head when he offers him one, the breeze blowing his hair against his face.

“I’d like to come see them sometime,” he says. “The chickens, I mean. I’ve never held one before.”

“Yes you have,” Dean says. Sam frowns at him and Dean says, “Petting zoo. I think you were ten.”

“So, like, twenty-seven years ago,” Sam says. Then, “Seriously, though. Maybe we can do a barbeque sometime? It’s been awhile since I’ve gone out to the country.”

Dean takes a drag from his cigarette, shrugs. “ _Mi casa es tu casa_ , man.”

Sam smiles at him. Then he bends down to give Cutter a scratch. “You take care of my idiot brother, all right?”

He stands up straight again and gives Dean a wave before turning around to walk back to the shelter. Dean watches him go, waits until Sam is back inside before he drops his cigarette and crushes it under his boot.

///

The sun’s starting to set by the time Dean finishes putting the final touches on a new planter. He sands down the edges one last time, just to make sure they’re smooth, then sets it on top of his workbench, steps back to make sure it’s even.

He feels a hand brush the middle of his back and turns just in time to see Cas come to stand next to him.

“Well?” he asks.

Cas steps up to the planter to touch the top, runs his hand down the side, inspects the edges. Then he steps back, next to Dean again, and nods, satisfied. “Beautiful. Sharon will love it.”

“Yeah?” Dean asks.

Cas smiles at him. “Of course.”

Dean turns off the light and whistles. Cutter gets up from his spot in the corner, stretches, and together they follow Cas out of the barn and up to the porch.

There’s a burger waiting for Dean on the side table, two bottles of beer, and a plate full of toppings—most of them from Cas’s garden. Cas gestures at him to help himself and sits down in his chair. Dean joins him with a relieved sigh, rubs at his knee a minute before he tucks into his food. Cas watches him, waiting for a verdict, still a little nervous about his first time at the grill.

Dean gives him a thumbs up. “Perfect.”

Cas relaxes back into his chair and says, “Good.”

They eat quietly, Cutter curled up at Cas’s feet, the chickens pecking around the yard. Dean finishes his food first, sets his plate aside and drinks his beer, closes his eyes while Cas finishes eating and rolls a joint. He kicks his feet up onto the porch railing as he smokes it, one hand hanging lazily off his chair to pet Cutter’s head until Dean nudges him. Cas takes a toke from his joint, leans over to cup his cheek and pull him closer, breathes the smoke into his mouth.

Dean kisses him after, easy and relaxed.

Cas smiles against his lips. “Hey.”

“Hi,” Dean says.

Cas traces his jaw with the tips of his fingers and asks, “Are you happy?”

Dean looks away, towards the property line, the sun setting beyond the farmer’s fields. He listens to the wind blowing through the trees, the last few robins singing. The sweet smell of Cas’s joint and, underneath that, the smell of fresh hay sits heavy in the air.

Dean smiles and says, “More or less.”

**Author's Note:**

>  **Overall Warnings:** some mild smoking (both cigarettes and weed) and show-level amounts of drinking through-out, angst, miscommunication, and explicit sexual content in later chapters. 
> 
> Thank you so much to [Kira](http://wendaego.tumblr.com/) and [Sara](http://domesticadventures.tumblr.com) for looking over this for me, all their amazing feedback, edits, and for letting me whine. All remaining mistakes and/or weirdness is my own. Extra special thank you to [Em](http://hellosaidthemoonisafangirl.tumblr.com) for her absolutely amazing artwork, on-going encouragement, and for just generally being a totally stellar person. I'm honoured I got to work with her on this. <3
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who has followed along with this fic as I posted it and took the time to comment and leave me feedback or messages, I really do appreciate it! 
> 
> [I'm also around on Tumblr](http://beenghosting.tumblr.com), if you're into that sort of thing.


End file.
